Media Matters has compiled a long list of just some of the violence-inciting rhetoric and hate-mongering which has become a staple of the right-wing blogosphere. It cites examples from bloggers such as Dean Esmay, Misha, Megan McCardle (a/k/a Jane Galt), and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, along with the pundits and bloggers, led by David Horowitz, who were responsible for the recent publication of the addresses, telephone numbers, and satellite photographs of the homes of employees of The New York Times.
The important point here is that the liberal blogosphere has received substantial -- really, endless -- media attention over the past few months, coverage which has included everything from the upsetting use of bad words to petty bickering to rank Internet gossip. But the pro-Bush blogosphere is all but ignored by the media, and it is long past time for a substantive, thorough examination of the extremist rhetoric and violence-drenched imagery which composes the backbone of their dialogue.
In addition to the Media Matters items, there are numerous unreported stories regarding the right-wing blogosphere that are of great significance. Let's read about what goes on as part of the daily "discussions" at Little Green Footballs (whose daily readership numbers place it very near the top 100 daily newspapers in terms of circulation figures), and in similar venues of derangement such as Free Republic.
What type of rhetoric is one of the leaders of the pro-Bush blogosphere, Glenn Reynolds a/k/a Instapundit, a University of Tennessee law professor, promoting with his links, and himself disseminating on a regular basis? What sentiments motivate publication by Michelle Malkin of some of the most disturbing and hateful propaganda posters which can be imagined? And what causes three bland, corporate Minnesota lawyers at Powerline to routinely accuse political opponents and journalists of treason, urge their imprisonment, and engage in "rhetorical excesses too frequent to list"?
One of the pro-Bush blogs most heavily promoted by Instapundit currently displays satellite photographs of the home of the NYT Publisher, along with his home address -- isn't that thuggish tactic worth an article by itself? And virtually every mainstream Democrat, along with journalists who publish articles embarrassing to the Bush administration, are routinely accused in the pro-Bush blogosphere of being traitors and adjudged to be guilty of treason -- not by obscure pro-Bush blogs but by the most significant and well-read ones. As a result, as the Media Matters post documents, many pro-Bush bloggers have a virtual obsession with vivid demands for hanging political opponents and journalists.
John Dean's superb new book, Conservatives Without Conscience (which has been #1 on Amazon for most of the week), analyzes the transformation of American "conservatism" from a political ideology based on the imperatives of limiting government power into a movement predominated by authoritarian impulses and personalities -- a transformation I have also written about extensively. On his book tour, Dean -- who spent his life as such a mainstream Republican that he worked in the highest levels of the Nixon White House -- has been observing that his political views have really not changed over the past 30 years, but he now finds himself accused by pro-Bush conservatives of standing on the "left" side of the political spectrum.
That is because the political spectrum itself has shifted radically, and the movement which now most loudly describes itself as "conservative" bears little resemblance to the political movement of which Dean, for his entire life, considered himself a part. As its leading bloggers vividly illustrate, pro-Bush "conservatism" is a highly authoritarian movement which seeks to vest unlimited and unrestrained power in their Leader, views garden-variety political dissent as blasphemy and treason, and glorifies violence as a justifiable tool to achieve their glorious political ends. The standard language and argumentation of these pro-Bush bloggers reflect those attributes on a daily basis, which is why it is long past time for some journalistic examinations of what is being said and done by pro-Bush blogs.
The extremism of the right-wing blogosphere is so blatant that it is acknowledged and lamented by some conservative bloggers. Two well-read bloggers who advocated for the invasion of Iraq and who are generally quite conservative in their political views, Andrew Sullivan and Gregory Djerejian, both wrote recently about how this political shift has made much of the right-wing blogosphere unrecognizable to them as anything "conservative." Sullivan was long the most celebrated pro-war, conservative blogger, while Djerejian's blog was called a "must-read" by The Washington Times for his pro-war blogging. Yet both have become almost entirely alienated by what the pro-Bush blogosphere, epitomized by Reynolds, has become.
Sullivan wrote recently of how previously independent and libertarian-minded blogosphere leaders such as Reynolds "never challenged in any serious way the abuses of power in this administration nor the extremism of the Malkinesque blogosphere," and as a result, much of the right-wing/pro-Bush blogosphere has largely abandoned any allegiance to restrained-government conservatism:
But his appeasement of the Malkin right is truly dispiriting. He's not alone in this respect, unable to break with the illegal, arguably un-conservative and certainly anti-libertarian aspects of the current administration.
Djerejian documented the continuous and enthusiastic promotion by Reynolds of extremist foreign policy rhetoric and "outrageously looney, laughable fare" which, if followed, would generate "a series of 100 year religious wars." Djerejian also laments the smear tactics routinely invoked by the Reynolds-led blogosphere against anyone who criticizes the administration's war efforts, including those who have spent their lives loyally serving this country. He notes that this:
is the only reason I waste time writing about it this morning--because I care about the future of the Republican party's foreign policy, and if people seriously believe this utter claptrap and horseshit in too great numbers, we're gonna have some serious problems on our hands beyond where we're already at. . . . When you get over 100,000 readers a day, and are a very intelligent Yale-trained lawyer, there should be some responsibility shown.
To underscore the point, Djerejian, in a separate post this week, publishes a letter from a U.S. solider serving in the Middle East who laments that "the shocking intelligence/ reasonability/ credibility free-fall at Instapundit is closely mirrored" by Bush followers everywhere, who refuse to believe reality about the war, who ascribe blame for all failures to a treasonous media or anti-American liberals rather than to the administration, and who place blind faith in the infallibility of Bush's actions, a syndrome which the solider describes as "a very common disease."
The extremist and increasingly deranged rhetoric and tactics found in the right-wing blogosphere -- not only among obscure bloggers but promoted and disseminated by its most-read and influential bloggers -- is, indeed, "a very common disease." When it becomes commonplace to hurl accusations of treason against domestic political opponents, or when calls for imprisonment and/or hanging of journalists and political leaders become the daily fare -- all of which is true for the pro-Bush blogosphere -- those are serious developments. And they merit discussion and examination by the media.
Instead of yet another story on whether Kos diarists are arguing with each other more than before or whether liberal bloggers curse too much, let us read about the extremist rhetoric, vicious character smears, and deliberate incitement to violence that has become the staple of the largest pro-Bush blogs --Malkin, Powerline, Instapundit and LGF -- along with the bloggers whom they tirelessly promote. Hundreds of thousands of people each day, including pundits and television news producers, are reading this material. The journalistic value in examining it and reporting on it ought to be self-evident.
UPDATE: Helpfully right on cue, LGF has a post today entitled "The Media are the Enemy" -- a title which really summarizes one of the principal points made on a daily basis by the blogs maintained by Powerline, Instapundit, and Malkin. Today's treasonous act is that a NYT photographer took photographs of a member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in combat with American forces. Apparently, taking a photograph of someone engaged in a war is the same as aiding and abetting them and being on their side and rooting for them to win. Hence, photographers who take photographs of the enemy are themselves "the enemy."
LGF then links to Jeff Goldstein, who -- in a post entitled "Sleeping with the Enemy" -- declares: "Looks like the NYT has decided to go with neutrality over objectivity—essentially severing ties with their own country in the service of what they believe is a higher journalistic good: Pulitzer Prizes." He then thanks Michelle Malkin for the tip. Goldstein's post is then predictably followed by comments such as this:
It is clear (as it has been) that the NYT’s has chosen their side. They should suffer the consequences thereof. I just hope they do.
And this:
Talk of treason is out of fashion for some reason, but I could see some photographer hanged without losing too much sleep over it.
And this:
As i said over at LGF, pity the reporter didn’t catch any return fire.
That's just from the first few comments I looked at following Goldstein's Treason Accusation of The Day against the NYT. Undoubtedly, there are scores more like them as his comment thread "evolves."
Another day, another treason accusation, new traitors found in the American media and the Democratic Party, more calls for them to be killed or declarations that they deserve death. These are the sentiments fueling the pro-Bush right wing -- day after day after day. I realize that the use of bad words in e-mails sent by readers of left-wing blogs reflect such horrible meanness and hatred and should be covered by hundreds of newspaper articles. But doesn't this dynamic also merit some discussion?
UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin's post today is entitled "In the Company of the Enemy" and she pointedly says: "Which side are they on? The New York Times settles the question definitively" -- both with an editorial that criticizes the Leader and with the photographs found by LGF. She then links to John Hinderaker at Powerline, who cleverly observes that there was nothing courageous about the photographer taking those photographs because there was no "likelihood that a member of the Iraqi "insurgency" would regard a representative of the New York Times as an enemy."
This photographer-as-traitor lunacy spreading among them like wildfire may make it seem like I fortuitously picked a good day to highlight the extremism and treason-obsession of the pro-Bush blogosphere. But today is nothing new. This goes on every day with the right's largest blogs. Every day, a new traitor, more treason, more journalists and Democrats who deserve to be hanged.
UPDATE III: Those American patriots at Blogs for Bush stand up today for core American values by urging that those responsible for the Plame scandal -- meaning not Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, but instead, Joe Wilson and others at "the DNC and Kerry campaign" -- be imprisoned because they tried to make the Commaner-in-Chief look bad -- in an election year no less (h/t Hume's Ghost):
We really do need to prosecute Joe Wilson and others (likely at the DNC and Kerry campaign) who cooked up this whole, bogus story in an election year ploy to try and slander the President in to defeat in November of 2004. That it didn't work just shows the innate wisdom of the American people - but the people guilty of this con job need to see the inside of a jail cell.
Is there anybody who voted against the Commander-in-Chief who can remain free? As amazing as that Blogs for Bush post is, and as amazing as the photographer-as-traitor rants are today, my favorite all-time defense of American values is Townhall's Ben Shapiro, who emphatically advocated -- literally -- that Al Gore, Howard Dean, and John Kerry all be imprisoned for sedition. He could never have guessed when he penned that screed that the pro-Bush blogosphere would end up making him look mild.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteOne edit. It's Jane Galt, not Gait
[Megan McCardle (a/k/a Jane Gait)]
John Galt is a character in an Ayn Rand novel that Megan must find attractive.
Glenn, here's a possible reason for why the media talks endlessly about the liberal blogosphere, but hardly at all about the right-wing. We're relevant; they're not. And surprisingly, everyone understands this, in spite of my second theory, which is that the vast majority of Americans are culturally/politically illiterate. Media doesn't argue with the Right Wing on television because it fears it. Media doesn't argue with the Right Wing on television because Media is corporately biased and having Ann Coulter squat over its viewers to spray them with her latest mental colonic is Media's way of acknowledging that these people have no real power, no real relevancy, and that they exist for nothing more than our salacious entertainment. For hundreds of years, the people of Rome were treated to festivals and gladiatorial combats, where they could witness things that would cause the Stoics to shudder at the loss of Virtue amongst the people. Of course, the people had no Virtue to begin with, on a collective scale, and the Games did what they were intended to do: contain the masses of the Poor living in Rome under a brutal Fascist emperor.
ReplyDeleteSorry. That was too quick of an edit. "Media doesn't NOT argue with the Right Wing because it fears it" would make more sense, though reading over it, it's still a miserable excuse for sentence construction.
ReplyDeleteGlenn, here's a possible reason for why the media talks endlessly about the liberal blogosphere, but hardly at all about the right-wing. We're relevant; they're not.
ReplyDeleteI see this point made frequently, and I agree with it to a degree. The left-wing blogosphere performs functions for liberals which no other venue is performing, while the right-wing blogosphere is largely redundant and arguably unnecessary in light of Fox News, right-wing radio, Townhall, Drudge and other similar venues.
That's true enough. But blogs which boast daily readership figures in excess of 100,000 cannot be dismissed as irrelevant by any measure. And I believe both right-wing and left-wing blogs have become a primary source of news and analysis for cable news producers, reporters, etc., such that its influence on readers and viewers is both direct and indirect.
And, all of that aside, I believe that blogs - with its daily postings and unedited and raw reactions - provide a uniquely potent microscope enabling one to see the true thoughts and impulses motivating political movements. That makes right-wing blogs independently worth examining for what they reveal about how Bush followers think and reason.
Left or progressive or just independent blogosphere is a far greater threat to old media.
ReplyDeleteBetter?
Glenn... [B]logs which boast daily readership figures in excess of 100,000 cannot be dismissed as irrelevant by any measure. And I believe both right-wing and left-wing blogs have become a primary source of news and analysis for cable news producers, reporters, etc., such that its influence on readers and viewers is both direct and indirect.
ReplyDeleteAnd, all of that aside, I believe that blogs - with its daily postings and unedited and raw reactions - provide a uniquely potent microscope enabling one to see the true thoughts and impulses motivating political movements. That makes right-wing blogs independently worth examining for what they reveal about how Bush followers think and reason.
It's certainly worthy of a look if 24/7 coverage of missing white women and shark attacks is news.
It's certainly worthy of a look if 24/7 coverage of missing white women and shark attacks is news.
ReplyDeleteOr if curse words used by Maryscott O'Connor are worth huge amounts of space in the Washington Post.
Glenn Greenwald... Or if curse words used by Maryscott O'Connor are worth huge amounts of space in the Washington Post.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, Maryscott with curse words is still probably work safe. Right wing blogs, not so much. From her blog today:
"What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane, what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking."
Tony Kushner
Glenn, here's a possible reason for why the media talks endlessly about the liberal blogosphere, but hardly at all about the right-wing. We're relevant; they're not.
ReplyDeleteI see this point made frequently, and I agree with it to a degree. The left-wing blogosphere performs functions for liberals which no other venue is performing, while the right-wing blogosphere is largely redundant and arguably unnecessary in light of Fox News, right-wing radio, Townhall, Drudge and other similar venues.
Rephrase that. It's not that liberal bloggers are relevent and conservative bloggers irrelevent.
It's that liberal bloggers are a threat to the mainstream media and, conservative bloggers, for all their hot air, simply aren't.
While publishing the home address of a freelance photographer went far over the line and quite possibly put her in danger of being harassed, the publication of the Sulzbergers' home address is almost laughable.
Unlike an unknown freelancer the Sulzbergers are well able to afford rent a cops and private security an any LGF reader who ventured onto their property to make a citizens arrest for "treason" would probably be in for an unpleasant surprise.
The print media, however, is very threatened by the rise of the liberal blogosphere (which does go after them constantly). They're losing money, readers, and probably ad revenue. Their political candidates (i.e. Lieberman) are being attacked. One of their hired right-wing bloggers (Ben Domenech) got caught for plagiarism by leftist bloggers and the Washington Post's editorial staff came off looking stupid for not checking more carefully.
BTW. The anti-semitic rhetoric coming out of the crowd that "protested" the New York Times last week was jarring.
Rabbi Aryeh Spero (I wonder what his LGF name is) sounded almost like someone posting on Stormfront.
http://caucusforamerica.com/opinion.art.php?pID=313
"If they can bring down the military, they can force the United States to go the negotiation route where they, not the generals, hold sway. If they can demonize the soldier, they assume we will look to them for “working things out” with the outside forces. If America can be defeated, then “the American Way” of strength against our enemies will be discredited, thereby opening the way for them, the cosmopolitans and transnationalists, to determine within their international fraternity the destiny of America. Bottom line: they wish to control America’s destiny."
On the one hand, I regret Glenn feels the need to take time out from his invaluable substantive work to address the pollution emanating from the right blogosphere... it's a distraction and a diversion from revealing and combating the dirty work this Administration is carrying out right under our noses.
ReplyDeleteI don't actually see discussion of right-wing extremism as taking time away from substantive discussions of "the dirty work this Administration is carrying out." They are closely related.
The reason the administration gets away with being so lawless and extremists is because the people who support it support that behavior. They are lawless, extremist and authoritrian. As a result, the administration can be and is.
That's why I think it's so critical to discuss not only the substantive issues relating to the administration's conduct but also the people behind it. Political movements are composed of, and shaped by, the people who support it. You can't talk about one without talking about the other.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteExcellent and thorough analysis, as always. I will never stop being amazed at how plain the double-standard is and how easily it's demonstrated that the absolute TOP right-wing blogs regularl show such horrific abuses of rhetoric and violent speech, while the similar "angry left" examples are almost always obscure and little-known.
One other thing I asked in another thread, that I'm trying to find the answer to, relating to the Specter bill--
How is it possible to draft a law that makes it impossible to sue the government for its misdeeds? Doesn't that contradict the right for "redress of grievances" in the Constitution?
I seem to remember an example from a number of years ago of a bill being drafted in Congress that would make it illegal to try to change the bill in the future. I couldn't believe that was possible, either.
Thanks,
Jeff
Andrew Sullivan may be sorry now for the meanness he sees around him, but I've yet to see him apologize for calling those of us opposed to war back in 2003 "objectively pro-Saddam", fifth columnists, and the like. He played an important part in setting the tone for discourse about this conflict and refuses to take responsibility for that. I can't be altogether sympathetic to someone in that situation.
ReplyDeleteGregory Djejerian seems to have done a much more honest and thorough accounting, with fascinating reflections on his own thoughts and rhetoric as well as others'.
Shooter,
ReplyDeleteThe problem with you and the right is that you had no problem with Jihadis hacking the heads off communists a few years back. Now it's a bad thing? We don't want people hacking peoples heads off at all if it can be prevented. They way you and the right go about things it's only encouraged.
Glenn said: "The extremist and increasingly deranged rhetoric and tactics found in the right-wing blogosphere..."
ReplyDelete2 things may be going on here:
1. Wingnutia may have run out of cred with the American public (witness Junior's poll numbers) and the denizens of these echo-chambers are having to shout louder and more viciously in an attempt to grab the attention they fanatically believe they're due.
OR
2. A time-honored mass hysteria generating method (e.g. Hitler, Goebbels, etc.) used to increase the stormtroopers' levels of adrenaline necessary to take the fight to the streets.
I lean toward the 1st, but my tin-foil hat worries about the 2nd!
If this color of rhetoric is to ever tone down and sober up, my bet is that it probably won't be because of rational arguments in goodwill that nudge the conservative bloggers, each of their own individual accord, into a more thoughtful position. It would likely be when the "tide" of the discussion seems to have turned against them and they realize, not that they are wrong, but that it would be totally unnacceptable to allow themselves to venture into that realm of rhetoric any longer.
ReplyDeleteI think something similar happened with WMD's: it's not important whether they are right or wrong, so much as their staying on some sort of ground that appears to still be plausible or possible, and from there to righteously fight the good fight against the liberals. But as it became clearer there were no WMD, they slowly stopped arguing for it and silently moved on to other issues. Not because they realized and confronted their being wrong, but because they couldn't get away with those arguments anymore.
In a sense it seems like a battle, the loyalties long ago decided and the reasons sought after the fact. Until the tide sways into some new direction, calls for the hanging of NYT reporters are still fair game.
I think as these arguments slowly wither (if they do) the conservative argument will maintain its allegiance but fall back, closer and closer, to a doctrine of authoritarianism. The loyalty to the movement is more important than any specific argument which justifies it.
On that note, Dean had an interesting interview with Olberman, discussing conservatives and authoritarianism:
John Dean: "I ran into a massive study that has really been going on 50 years now by academics. They’ve never really shared this with the general public. It’s a remarkable analysis of the authoritarian personality. Both those who are inclined to follow leaders and those who jump in front and want to be the leaders. It was not the opinion of social scientists. It was information they drew by questioning large numbers of people — hundreds of thousands of people — in anonymous testing where [the subjects] conceded their innermost feelings and reactions to things. And it came out that most of these people were pre-qualified to be conservatives and this, did indeed, fit with the authoritarian personality."
Shooter... On the other hand, we have people that are upset and angry about Islamo-fascists and enablers who are
ReplyDelete* Expressly seeking the destruction of their neighbor and it's citizens
* Actively provoke conflict by killing
* Anti-free speech
* Anti-Democratic
* Subjugate women
I'm sure some people feel the same way about Israel on most of those counts. I'd be willing to bet the "Islamo-fascists" don't subjugate women this way.
More.
Here's a report, unscientific, purely situational, and unconstrained by a shred of statistical decency, from a semi-rural area of one of our reddest Red States.
ReplyDeleteI spend a moderate amount of time here doing business. Last trip was in March, and at the time I noted that all the natives mentioned God and His right-hand man, St. George Bush, in just about every conversation. I've been looking forward to seeing how the local political prattle has changed in the face of the increasingly obvious fact that Bush is veering farther and farther off course and out of control.
The answer, I am sorry to report, is that people here now openly discuss the importance of "killing a whole bunch of them," and how we simply must "turn it into a glass parking lot."
Your intrepid reporter, signing off for now.
shooter 242 @ 10:21 a.m.:
ReplyDeleteSounds like your guy got hold of an Oxford Unabridged after doing a little too much meth. Interesting, in a clinical way, or as "found" poetry, but hardly characteristic of most comment from the left.
There are crazy people all around us; one of the disadvantages of the Internet allows us to see -- and hear -- them.
Glenn's point is that the kind of hang-the-traitors boilerplate from places like LGF sounds more like something from Der Stuermer, and appears to serve a similar political purpose, i.e. to recruit brownshirts.
No one on the left is currently interested in corraling nutcases and putting a political spearpoint on them. Now there have been times, and I remember some of them, when this wasn't so. I was actually around when "off the pigs" was a term in common usage. I opposed it then, and would oppose it now.
Is there really any reason to encourage warring gangs in the streets, except to bring a leader (fuehrer, caudillo, duce, pick your term from history) to permanent power?
Is this really what any of us want, right or left? I truly hope not.
William Timberman... I was actually around when "off the pigs" was a term in common usage. I opposed it then, and would oppose it now.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say you were around then, do you mean like actually at Kent state, or S.F.S.U in '66 -'68 facing the S.F. Tac squad and their back-ups or Berkeley in '69 facing the Blue meanies (Santa Rita Co. Sherrifs, etc...)?
I was here at the time. I guess you had to be there.
ReplyDeleteI see two reasons why it is highly unlikely that the Post, the Times and the rest will never be "fair and balanced" in their treatment of the thugosphere:
ReplyDeleteFirst, as per rogouski above,
It's not that liberal bloggers are relevent and conservative bloggers irrelevent.
It's that liberal bloggers are a threat to the mainstream media and, conservative bloggers, for all their hot air, simply aren't.
The wingnuts may threaten their physical safety, but we threaten their self-image, which they take more seriously. Telling a reporter to shut up, which seems to be a big part of the right wing message, is in a sense a compliment; calling a reporter incompetent, and backing it up with facts, is very threatening.
The second explanation is even simpler. Bash Kos -- cocktail weenies. Bash Malkin, Coulter, Instapundit et al -- no cocktail weenies.
Mongo like cocktail weenies. Mongo bash Kos.
Mongo IS a cocktail weenie.
ReplyDeleteGlenn, I would be grateful if the "mighty wurlitzer" would just cease to "catapult the propaganda" from this administration.
ReplyDeleteThen, the pro-bush blogosphere would be less effective and be exposed as the fringe extremists that they are.
Come on - give me a break - our problem is not the blogs that write about the lying liars, its the "journalists" that create the "echo-chamber" to begin with.
You really have the logic on this one turned on its head...
Anonymous (I do wish some of you anonymouses would pick a handle, any handle, that'd allow us to tell which one of you is which. But anyway....)
ReplyDeleteI was in Berkeley in 1966-67. The Oakland anti-draft demonstrations of October, 1967 were planned in the house I was living in at the time. Earlier, I worked with Mike Davis at the SDS regional office in Los Angeles. Later, I was in Santa Barbara when the Bank of America was burned. (And for the Dept. of Homeland Security eavesdroppers, let me just say that I was helping to organize a student union in the Foreign Languages Dept. at UCSB on the night in question.) Sounds like we missed each other.
If your point is that we were misunderstood, and consequently brutalized, by the forces of the establishment, that was certainly true.
On the other hand, by 1967 there were plenty of young folks who thought that provoking street fights with the police, or burning banks would help "radicalize" the masses.
In fact, I left Berkeley when it became clear that the draft demonstration was being planned as just such a police provocation, unbeknownst to most of the people who'd be innocently attending it, and that there was literally nothing, short of becoming an informer, that I or any of my friends could do to stop it.
Incidentally, I was 23 at the time. I'm not now. This isn't the time or place to discuss credentials, or viewpoints that have changed, or not changed over time. Let me just say that a politics which depends on mendacity or violence is not a politics worth having. As the Brits would say, "full stop."
And the reason "journalists" would tell the truth about pro-bush blogs when these same journalists dutifully report the lies that make the pro-bush blogs possible is...
ReplyDeleteOh never mind - this is really a lame post glenn.
I actually pin the whole thing on the media, and their ego.
ReplyDeleteThe media, I strongly believe, think that if they maintain the current 50/50 split, that proves how wonderfully "objective" they are. So they ignore stories and ideas that could crack that balance even a little.
Needless to say, I think that the utter depravity of the far right (You start witht he bloggers, but you're also getting into the media outlets and paid-for book circuit), is one of those stories that would destroy the balance, and that's why we don't hear about it.
It would be comparing left and right..and saying..you know what folks? There's no equivilence here. There's no "they're just as bad". They're not.
But that would take actual leadership. *sigh*
I think that if you somehow could get the major right-wing bloggers and their enablers in the MSM (I'm thinkin' Jonah Goldberg as a prime example) to SIMPLY TRY TO GET TO THE GREEN ZONE FROM THE BAGHDAD AIRPORT (preferably by bicycle), they would change their tone. Of course, assuming that they're not intentionally spinning the truth in order to support their team, regardless of the fact.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how much of this is religious-driven, ignorance, or simple economic self-preservation. Is the Tennessee law professor Hindraker an attendee of an End Times megachurch? Does he live in a cheesy Mcmansion reachable only by long drives in an SUV? Does he watch anything more than Fox News? Does he have any bluejeans in his closet, or just an impressive collection of suits and starched khakis?
My hardcore chickenhawk Republican brother-in-law has never felt the concussion of artillery, the pop of sniper fire, or the smell of two-day old corpses. (And neither have I.) But he now doubts the Iraq war AND Bush.
I'm just speculating, but the dark fantasies of the right-wing blogosphere are driven by ignorance of war and death, brought to us by a perfect Capitalist war machine who pays its soldiers out of the federal coffers, and who mostly have no other choices. Perhaps if they have more of a dog in the fight (such as the two military-age sons of my brother-in-law), or were called to make some kind of real sacrifice to support Bush's wars of convenience, we'd be seeing less fascism through the Internet.
Shooter242 wrote:
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we have people that are upset and angry about Islamo-fascists and enablers who are
* Expressly seeking the destruction of their neighbor and it's citizens
* Actively provoke conflict by killing
* Anti-free speech
* Anti-Democratic
* Subjugate women
* Etc., etc., etc..
So let me get this straight, you are going to ignore all that, because you think you can make a few political points?
No, he ignores all that because it is entirely irrelevant. Glen was not condemning people for criticizing Islamic states or movements. He was condemning them for advocating genocide, and once genocide is on the table, all other issues become irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether those "Islamo-fascists" are the most evil people on earth or the most virtuous, or anything in between. NOTHING justifies genocide.
WT...On the other hand, by 1967 there were plenty of young folks who thought that provoking street fights with the police, or burning banks would help "radicalize" the masses.
ReplyDeleteIt generally leads to more repressive and aggressive actions on the part of the government. We don't need that. My intent was not to have you produce "credentials" but to satisfy my infathomable
curiosity. Agressive and repressive actions against a free people tend to make those people angry. Being gunned down in the streets by thugs, in uniform or not, will do that. Violence causes repression and repression causes violence. It's a stand-off. It's not something I see happening here. Not yet. Economic conditions can change rapidly, however, and then all bets are off.
Well, the media ignored Limbaugh's hate for over a decade. Why should they not continue?
ReplyDeleteThis week past the New York Times received an envelope of white powder in the mail along with what was essentially an accusation of treason.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if the powder was harmless, but if/when someone is killed or injured as a result of the incitement on the right-wing blogs, I wonder if that will be enough to prompt the Times and other media to cover this deranged commentary.
Regarding Dean's citing of tha studies of authoritarian cultists... I would really appreciate it if one of the bigger bloggers on the left (such as Glenn Greenwald, or perhaps David Niewert or Digby) would analyze this in the context of Jane Jacobs' groundbreaking book "Systems of Survival", in which human ethics is basically broken down into two schools: the Enforcer/Guardian syndrome, and Trader/Merchant syndrome (and in which "monsrous hybrids" such as RICO or the Mafia are pointed out).
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell, I think conservatives are naturally part of the Enforcer/Guardian syndrome, and they have their place. But neocons, and the current crop of nutjobs who follow InstaPundit, Malkin, Coulter etc, are examples of Jacobs' "monstrous hybrid": natural conservatives who are abusing this tendency by combining it with personal gain: which can be anything from taxcuts to Halliburton-style war-profiteering, to fancying themselves as somehow "sexy" via their alliance with "macho" poseurs.
I think this whole phenenomenon of emerging authoritarianism could be very usefully contextualized in the framework laid out by Jane Jacobs in "Systems of Survival". For one thing, it would remind us that conservatism itself can be good -- and how easily it can be corrupted. This would be valuable to help understand conservatism and avoid alienating genuine conservatives, and it might help stop conservatism's march off a cliff to neo-conservatism and finally authoritarianism.
I have brought up "Systems of Survival" occasionally on many liberal blogs over the years, and although many liberal bloggers had major academic or professional credentials before they started blogging, I have yet to see any of them address Jacobs' thesis.
To anonymous above -- thanks for the wikipedia link to People's Park.
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot of history from that. Very moving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Park
GJ said...
ReplyDeleteTo anonymous above -- thanks for the wikipedia link to People's Park.
I learned a lot of history from that. Very moving.
GJ,
There were a series of smaller violent actions against peaceful protesters in NYC, culminating in this action:
Hard Hat Riot
These had GOP written all over them.
100% energy focused on trumped up outrage equals 0% energy expended to keep the wheels from falling off this world. Maybe "spin" is a better word than I had given it credit for, cause they're spinning inside their little tops so hard and fast whilst Rome burns.
ReplyDeleteThe deal is that Corporate America has been given all manner of nifty goodies by BushCo: massive tax cuts, massive defense contracts, and massive reductions in regulation and oversight.
ReplyDeleteAnd America's mainstream press is corporate to the bone.
That's why they gladly take the repeated insults and attacks and then say "thank you, sir, may I have another?"
They don't realize that it isn't just BushCo's fans that hate them. BushCo hates them, too, and wants to either take them over (FOX, etc.) or destroy them.
Glenn, it sounds to me as though more than just the mainstream media should be paying attention to the right-wing blogosphere. Just the other day, didn't the NYT recieve an envelope containing a mysterious (and harmless) white powder, along with a clipping of one of its recent editorials?
ReplyDeleteThe message is clear: the Times, in the eyes of some people, is a legitimate target for "terrorist" attacks, and it's not much of a stretch of the imagination to suspect that the perpetrators of this ominous hoax were inspired by the calls for punishment of the times being made daily on the right.
A few days back, I suggested in one of your comment threads that there was nothing to be gained by paying too close attention to the screechings on the right. I was obviously wrong. We should be paying attention, and so should the FBI.
Thursday I was outed by someone at KSFO (the ABC/Disney station that has Melanie Morgan on calling for the hanging of journalists.)
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because I and one of my readers told their advertisers what Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers and Brian Sussman are saying about hanging journalists. (see Joe Conason's story in Salon about KSFO extreme hosts. All the audio clips in his story are all from my educational collection. Some are from the letters I sent to the WSJ and the AP calling for them to refuse to sponsor the station whose hosts call for their deaths.
As Chris noted above
Did you all see the story about the 'white powder sent to the NY Times'http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php? name=News&file=article&sid=6550&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Let's Connect the dots.
Radio host Calls for the death of the media "traitors".
Right wing nuts Publish addresses. Journalist get Death treats. Actual "fake" toxic substance sent to NY Times (not to mention the REAL anthrax that got sent!)
NEXT? Actual dead journalists? Bloggers? Other "traitors".
I'm especially pissed about the calls for death on the Radio airwaves. WE OWN the broadcast spectrum. It was given to the stations in exchange they are required to follow some rules and regulations. This is agreed upon and has been for decades. You can't say FUCK on the radio without a fine or getting fired.
Also, there are STATION guidelines and Network guidelines that have nothing to do with the FCC that should also be in effect. I like to point out that this is a Disney station but also an ABC station with real journalists working there (minus the people at The Note)
Morgan and the people on the radio who called for the journalists to be hanged should be fined and fired.
When it is on commercially supported broadcast radio this is NOT about her free speech. This is shouting fire in a theater. We have recognized that it is not okay.
I'm SICK and pissed off at this shit being ignored and well meaning people misunderstanding the difference between standing on the corner at the federal building and spouting eliminatist phrases and a talk radio host who is PAID by sponsors to spout it on OUR radio waves. The sponsors need to know, the management needs to know and they need to ACT.
When some nutball decides that Melanie Morgan is giving him instructions on what to do to "protect the troops" and KILLS Glenn Simpson at the WSJ or Josh Meyer and Greg Miller the LA Times or Bill Keller at the Journal will the people say, "There was no way we could have anticipated this would have happened."?
Don't think radio is that powerful? Watch Hotel Rwanda.
If you ever want to see the extreme, unvarnished far-right viewpoint in a blog, I highly suggest: Reliapundit.
ReplyDeleteHere's a few very recent greatest hits from the man, blogged directly on the front page, not by commenters:
On Markos
"HIS NAME HAS A CERTAIN RING TO IT WHEN YOU ADD THE 'AL', DOESN'T IT? THE RING OF TRUTH. 'Markos Moulitsas al Zuniga.' As in 'al Zarqawi' and 'al Zawahiri.' And 'al Gore.'
SERIOUSLY, TO MAKE THE JIHADOMANIACS HISTORY WE HAVE TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY."
Kill Pinch
"Pinch and Keller should be arrested for treason, tried, convicted, and executed. Sound harsh?! Well, er, um... THIS IS WAR! And they have REPEATEDLY aided the enemy."
Times=terrorists
"In my opinion, the ONLY explanation is that BOTH the NYTIMES and their leakers KNEW THAT THIS WOULD AID THE TERRORISTS. And that this was the CHIEF REASON THEY DID IT."
My god, how lameass can you get, Shooter242? You pluck an intentionally over-the-top comment from a one-year old thread as proof of something? Jesus.
ReplyDeleteBesides, here is the brilliant right-wing civility the comment was in response to:
Like when they [lefty 'moonbats'] applaud the mass murders that took place on 9/11. For example, the infamous protestor who held up a sign saying 'I love New York more without the Twin Towers'.
Hey, how come left-wing idiots aren't expected to live this sort of shit down? How come the MSM doesn't take left-wing idiots to task for their moonbattish statements - if the MSM is so against the left and stands with the right, surely that's what they would be doing all the time? Is it because they think, like many here think, that 'There might be left posters who are rude, condescending, obnoxious, and even overly angry', and it's OK for lefties to be like that. And to run riot, attack people, smash up buildings, when holding one of their so-called 'protests'...but hey, repressed emotion is a bad thing, right?
I never called for the prosecution of the NYT for their latest leak even though you erroneously accused me of such in a recent post of yours.
ReplyDeleteBe specific. Provide a link of what you think is false and should be retracted.
As for the LGF insanity, I already added that to an update. Do you think someone who photographs insurgents are in favor of those insurgents?
Shouldn't that be, "[f]or the last ten years. I have been a litigator..."?
ReplyDeleteYes, I posted at the lgf before being banned for not being a yes bobblehead with everything he spews.
ReplyDeleteThe FBI monitors that hate site due to threats administered by his readers.
A photographer who takes photos of starving children in Darfur isn't in favor of starving children in Darfur.
ReplyDeleteEddie Adams wasn't in favor of executing Vietnamese prisoners.
Margarte Bourke White wasn't in favor of the Hitler Youth when she photographed them. She wasn't in favor of Stalin when she photographed him.
Ansel Adams wasn't in favor of detaining Japanese Americans at Manzanar when he did an extensive photo essay.
Diane Arbus wasn't a Republican and her photographs of Republicans didn't make her one.
Cartier Bresson wasn't a communist because he took photos of Young Pioneers during the Cold War.
Robert Kapa wasn't engaging in fascist propaganda when he took his famous photo of the loyalist soldier getting a bullet through his head at the end of the Spanish Civil War.
Bad right-wing camera phone photographers like "Zombie" aren't pro-International Answer when they sneak up behind protesters and snap quick blurry shots of leaflets or signs then run home breathlessly to post them on FreeRepublic.
Would you stand there and watch a terrorist shoot at Americans and take a picture?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would not, because I'm not a jouranlist. But if I were a photographer assigned to that region and to cover the insurgency, of course I would. I'd want Americans to see the reality of the forces we are fighting, rather than suppressing their images.
Photographers should take pictures of all newsworthy events - good and bad. They're journalists, not propagandists. I want to read about what the insurgents are doing and I want to see them doing it. That's how people who want to know about the world thing, and it's what journalists are supposed to do.
What good would possibly come from ignoring the insurgency and pretending that it didn't exist? That's what the Bush administration did for the last three years and look where it brought us.
Jesus, Glenn, don't you realize?? It's WWIII.
ReplyDeleteWell, as long as the right wing blogs, Rush, Fox et al can push the talking point out fast enough.
Ugly American:
ReplyDeleteSpeaking only for myself, I note that the photographer the LGFers and Goldstein are all in high dudgeon about was born in Portugal and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a contractor w/ the NYT. So, it isn't as if this was an American or Brit watching an Iraqi Shi'a taking aim at a cemetery where, so the caption says, American forces are.
But I certainly do think the photographer is brave, even if I find the description of his book collection of photographs absurdly understated regarding the Shi'ite "insurgents, " to wit: "[it]illustrates a narrative about faith, sacrifice, war and martyrdom." That isn't exactly how I'd put it.
The Photographer, however, stands a good chance of being beheaded for video display, yet he's on this assignment.That is brave. Further, the fotos inarguably have news value. That's part of what we are up against. So, what is the problem with them?
I remember both stories; the porn story and the contractors. But, you know, talking about that makes us evul librul traitors who hate 'Murrka. (arms violently shaking above my head)
ReplyDeleteThis is all about mind control. They have to attack ANY source of information which MAY run counter to the cult’s conditioned view of reality or the house comes tumbling down.
ReplyDeleteThis is EXACTLY how cults operate. By demonizing the NYT and any information source which does not get in line behind the theofascist train, they are shutting the cult off from information. They don’t have to listen to or deal with the reality the NYT may put out in the future. Information control is HUGE in cults. You can control people through it alone.
This is all about mind control. Many on the right know they are being dishonest. They don’t care, just like cults they believe they and they alone hold the “truth” and therefore anyone who disagrees is against the cult, a traitor. Just like cults they then harp on some deceptive misconstrued point endlessly like the Rumsfeld photos. Then, when one of their targets does mess up, as we all do sooner or later, they will take that as confirmation that everything, EVERYTHING they have been conditioned to believe is correct. Dan Rather is one example. You train people to believe Gore is a liar and when he misconstrues who he flew to a disaster site with, it confirms the whole picture they have had implanted in their minds.
Read this if you haven’t.
http://tinyurl.com/l7at2
Keep in mind they have had years of this put into their minds. Rush talks to them 3 hours a day 5 days a week, feeding them half truths and lies. Koresh didn’t talk to his cult that much. Rush doesn’t tell them “Oh this democrat did this awful thing.” And then add that also “this week Republican _____ was convicted of child molestation.” So, just like a cult they get one side, over and over and over. Sun Myung Moon doesn’t say “I am all about true love” and then add “And oh by the way, I swindled billions of dollars from widows in Japan and used it to manipulate the USA political system and the chumps accepted me. Hahaha I sure have conned these saps to bring to power right wing theocratic politics to America. I fucked them good and they STILL don’t see it!!!”
He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future. Orwell 1984
The right is conditioned to believe they and ONLY they are being given the short end of the stick. From there it is just a small jump to feeling they are being persecuted and given a raw deal. When they feel persecuted that makes it easier to jump to the belief that lying and distorting is OK. After all, they are being mistreated, they “deserve” to get some leeway when lying. Former moonies will tell you that the cult actually teaches what they call “heavenly deception” meaning they are deceiving the world to save it from Satan, therefore G-d is cool with it.
Folks the “us vs. them” frame is classic cult mind control.
Read this, who do you see?
http://www.spiritwatch.org/mincon10.htm
The larger problem is that as Robert Parry, the most underutilized honest investigative reporter in the nation, has said, the left has no media infrastructure in which it can depend to get its message out. The bloggs help but they just talk to the choir. What we say here goes no further. It is not getting to the masses. Cettainly not to the cult.
The reason they go after left wing blogs is because THEY ARE THE ONLY GAME LEFT IN TOWN. Did you get that? They go after left wing blogs because they are the ONLY possibly threat to the cult left. Democrats won't hardly move and without the blogs putting a match under their asses they really won't. Democrats are still under the mistaken impression that what is going on America is somehow normal or the product of the free market of ideas.
What else is there? Olberman, Stewart? Haha They will chew up any democrat as soon as they may come to power. As Atrios says, Olberman and Jon Stewart are about calling bullshit on people. They are not a media infrastructure like the right has.
I heard John Hagee tell Israelis National Radio that through the network of TV and radio stations he has access to he can organize 40 million people. He wasn’t kidding. There’s your infrastructure. Right wing hate radio? Hah Anyone ever listen to religious radio, frighteningly out of touch with the real world. They control millions of minds, millions.
The only “infrastructure” we can depend on is blogs. They know that. They also know that all the blogs are doing is holding their own. They must stamp them out and in time they will, then they will complete their theofascist takeover, nothing can or will stop them, no more bumps in the road. Does anyone really think that the right won’t throw some lipstick on a pig like McCain and tell the nation he is a “new and improved” “conservative?” You think the country won’t fall for it again? Who will tell them differently? No one. Then you can have a democratic congress, it won’t matter much because they will complete the theofascist takeover of the court system.
If you study cults you will see what is going on and why it has worked. Think about this a minute. 25 years ago the right got into bed with the grand deceiver and the most successful cult leader the world has ever known. They jumped into bed with a group whose leader makes a living out of conning people out of their lives and their belief systems. 25 years later we wonder why the right has changed. Do I need to remind you that Moon spent BILLIONS of dollars bringing the theocratic right to power? Do you not think there is a reason he spent this money? Do I have to tell you he is not the clown YOU are conditioned to see? Moon said in the 70s that the Korean government learned from his ways. Well, the conservative movement “learned” from his ways also. He is their savior.
…this quote below was also said in essence in U.S. News and World Report in 1989, here we will quote Robert Parry. What has happened to our nation is NO accident.
http://tinyurl.com/3bu5d
Buying the Right
By the mid-1980s, Moon’s Unification Church had carved out a niche as an acceptable part of the American right. In one speech to his followers, Moon boasted that “without knowing it, even President Reagan is being guided by Father (Moon).” Yet, Moon also made clear that his longer-range goal was the destruction of the U.S. Constitution and America’s democratic form of government. “History will make the position of Reverend Moon clear, and his enemies, the American population and government will bow down to him.” Moon said, speaking of himself in the third person. “That is Father’s tactic, the natural subjugation of the American government and population.”
Conservtiaves are getting the world they are asking for - they just do see what it is they are asking for.
BTW, I use the term “theofascist” – that is what they are and as far as the “fascist” part, let me say this.
Godwin didn’t have a clue where this nation was heading when he came up with his law. Therefore Godwin’s Law is null and void.” -- mw’s law.
One common tactic of the right-wing blogoshere and of the right more generally, is to pick out some extreme view or comment made by someone arguably on "the left" and ascribe the sentiment or comment by such extremist to all "leftists", liberals and democrats (except perhaps Lieberman), equate any criticism from those quaters as simply anti-Bush and to then dismiss all criticism of the administration's actions and policies as emanting from delusional "Bush-Haters", using the extremists' comment as "proof".
ReplyDeleteThe length of time it takes to explain the tactic illustrates its effectiveness.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteWhy is it so hard for you to understand why people who love America, and love their lives, and love freedom, democracy, human rights, and so on, might hate and wish righteous justice upon so-called "fellow citizens" who seem bound and determined to glamorize and glorify the enemy, portray their own country and its ally Israel in the worst possible light, and give away every secret program we have to combat Islamic terror?
Why is it so hard for you to understand this? Why?
Imagine if during WW2 the media had been behaving the way it does today, on the scale it does today.
What LGF, Malkin, and the rest are doing is shining a bright light on the MSM's perfidy, which goes back to their misreporting on the Tet Offensive and their refusal to correct their error, and runs through Dan Rather and Mary Mapes going with an obviously fabricated story in a desperate effort to influence a national election, to the NYT revealing one classified anti-terror program after another.
After a while, Glenn, you start connecting the dots and realize that most of the MSM is composed of people who, for one reason or another, just do not care about America, and/or actively support her enemies. And when those enemies have made it abundantly clear that they wish to kill many of us and utterly destroy our way of life, well, that kind of makes us dislike those who give them any kind of aid and comfort.
Again ... WHY is it so hard for you to understand this? Have you never heard of the instinct for self-preservation? Have you never heard of free peoples not wanting to lose their hard-won rights and freedoms to followers of an 8th-century, totalitarian religious ideology?
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Thanks for putting this together, Glenn. I've been thinking about this for the past several weeks. For a while I thought that the reason this stuff doesn't get highlighted is that the major media just thinks of these people as jackasses, and thus reporters and editors just can't be bothered to take them seriously. However, the recent spate of idiotic coverage of lefty blogs using bad language has led me to believe something else is going on. What that is, I still haven't figured out.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said:
ReplyDelete"Have you never heard of free peoples not wanting to lose their hard-won rights and freedoms to followers of an 8th-century, totalitarian religious ideology?"
Why as a matter of fact, I HAVE. And most of them are the very people that Malkin, Reynolds et al want hanged in public squares.
Excellent analysis as usual, Glenn. I fear that if the MSM doesn't start covering this hateful rhetoric and putting GOP lawmakers on the spot about it, it will get much worse.
ReplyDeleteMy worst fear is that it will even cross the line into acts of violence against "unpatriotic" reporters...
Anonymous: Why is this so hard for you to understand?
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for Glenn, but for myself, I'll say that I can't understand it because absolutely none of it represents a reality that I can perceive. Which, of course, is a polite way of saying that it isn't true. It isn't, you know, none of it, no matter how fervently you believe it.
Anonymous said: "Have you never heard of free peoples not wanting to lose their hard-won rights and freedoms to followers of an 8th-century, totalitarian religious ideology?"
ReplyDeleteAnd you Anonymous, have you never heard of free peoples not wanting to lose their hard-won rights and freedoms to followers of an 1st-century, totalitarian religious ideology?
Wingnuts oughta look in the mirror!
Well, you might find this one interesting from Harper's Stabbed In The Back - about this syndrome of needing the MYTH to fight against (forgeting that this mythical *Enemy* now comprises about 65-70% of the American People).
ReplyDeleteA Few GEMs from this piece:
"...The stab-in-the-back myth is much more powerful than any of these facts, and it continues to grow more so as time passes.
...
Given this state of permanent culture war, it is not surprising that the Bush White House trotted out the stab-in-the-back myth when its Iraq project began to run out of steam early last summer.
…
Once again, criticism of the war in Iraq had been adroitly linked to criticism of the administration, and then to treason—something that would, somehow, magically empower the enemy and demoralize our own troops. Once again, unnatural enemies were striking at the heroic, Siegfried figures at the top of the administration, who struggled to get out their great truth that no intelligence had been manipulated and the Democrats were engaging in “revisionism.”
Yet still, somehow, Bush’s numbers continued to plunge. What went wrong? How could such an infallible Republican strategy, conducted with all of the right wing’s vast media resources at his command, have failed so utterly? How was it that the story of the stab in the back had lost its power to hold us spellbound?
…
We have, instead, reached a crossroads where the overwhelming right-wing desire to dissolve much of the old social compact that held together the modern nation-state is irreconcilably at odds with any attempt to conduct such a grand, heroic experiment as implanting democracy in the Middle East. Without mass participation, Iraq cannot be passed off as an heroic endeavor, no matter how much Mr. Bush’s rhetoric tries to make it one, and without a hero there can be no great betrayer, no skulking villain.
…
An American president, wandering the halls of Eastern European palaces, denounces his own nation in order to appease his hosts into torturing secret prisoners. Our heroic age surely has come to an end.
Worth a read!
Thr right-wing blogosphere is so desperate to find anything to attack the NYT that they have absolutely no problem with manufacturing a faux crisis in order to prove their so-called moral superiority.
ReplyDeleteThis weekend's attacks on the NYT photographer are a blatant example of that. That they would expect a photographer to take out the enemy flies in the face of sanity.
They clamor daily for coverage from Iraq yet, when it's handed to them, they label the photographer as a traitor.
I think we need to remember that the right-wing is seeing its power being stripped away daily and desperate times call for desperate measures on their part. They'll grasp for every straw in an effort to hang onto the little they have left. It's all quite pathetic and, more importantly, it's dangerous. And, when they cross that line, they definitely need to be exposed and they need to be challenged.
After a while, Glenn, you start connecting the dots and realize that most of the MSM is composed of people who, for one reason or another, just do not care about America, and/or actively support her enemies.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good illustration of the extraordinary stuff people seem to be capable of believing nowadays. It's up there with claiming Bush planned 9/11.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteGlenn,
Why is it so hard for you to understand why people who love America, and love their lives, and love freedom, democracy, human rights, and so on, might hate and wish righteous justice upon so-called "fellow citizens" who seem bound and determined to glamorize and glorify the enemy, portray their own country and its ally Israel in the worst possible light, and give away every secret program we have to combat Islamic terror?
Because he is not a self-aggrandizing coward.
Because your description of the MSM is not in agreement with reality.
Because the 'justice' you wish for is not righteous.
Because the above is your dishonorable excuse, not your reason.
The ultrarightists who prevails on our airwaves, in the rightwing blogs and in large portions of our federal government today give more aid & comfort to islamist extremists every day than the left could in months of anti-Bush reporting.
You put our citizenship in quotes, deem your feelings for us a hatred that engenders a legitimate desire for 'righteous justice' and still dare to call yourself an American? What Christianist propanganda 'service' did you attend this morning to have this misplaced, overwought sense of grievance so well-honed by this afternoon?
I'm not much of a liberal, by historic standards. Glenn clearly does not regard himself as such, and has stated so repeatedly in his book and blog. The opposition you see expressed in his posts and these comment pages is opposition to the hijacking of our nation by extremists who rely on operatic, perimenopausal screeds like yours to silence honest men. In that silence they may succeed at unbuilding our nation of laws, not men.
Yet for all that, Conservatives don't riot, don't demonstrate en masse, don't burn automobiles, and don't attack the police. Liberals do.
ReplyDeleteYes, I expect that Timothy McVeigh was a liberal too.
Politics does not only come in two flavors. Don't be so dishonest.
Shooter242 said:
ReplyDelete"Yet for all that, Conservatives don't riot, don't demonstrate en masse, don't burn automobiles, and don't attack the police."
Hmmm...seems to me your arch-conservative-hero Tim McVeigh kinda did all those things.
And good ol' arch-conservative-hero David Koresh kinda did all those things.
And seems to me your arch-conservative-heros the Nazi SA did all those things.
Again, wingnuts really oughta look in the mirror!
Shooter242 said...
ReplyDelete....Considering that the "traitor deserves death" theme originated with the Plame affair, directed at Rove et al
Could you cite your source? I didn't see this sentiment expressed in the MSM, and was not reading blogs this far back. Absent a source, I'll assume you made up this 'viewpoint' in order to smear the administration's opponents.
In each case you have given the photographer was unable to personally effect the outcome of the events, or actually did attempt to do so by use of their photos. (as the case of showing starving children)
ReplyDeleteReally?
It looks to me as if Eddie Adams had more power to affect the outcome of the event he was photographing than the photographer in Iraq could have.
In his case, he could have made a huge fuss in the hopes that the Vietnamese soldiers who were about to pull the trigger on the captured Vietcong guerilla and disrupted the execution. It was right there, specific, clear.
In the case of the photographer in Iraq what did you want him to do, knock the machine gun out of the militia member's hands and dragged him out of the building to the US military?
Yeah, he could have "reported" their position to the authorities and surely the Madhi army members knew this and were long gone by the next day.
Your argument simply doesn't hold water.
What's more, Margaret Bourke White could have much more easily affected the outcome of history. Instead of photographing Stalin, she could have hiden a derringer in her padded braziere and blew his brains out instead of taking his photo.
Stalin vs. one Shiite militiaman? Who has more power to affect history.
Hmm....
"To all of you- focus on the issus of the day, not your petty little personal spats."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, anonymous, the tendency towards totalitarianism and violent extremism on the right (blogs are merely a symptom of a general cultural trend)IS one of the issues of the day. I strongly suspect that America's next 9/11 will be perpetrated by homegrown extremists against various supposed "traitorous" elements. These extremists will have been egged on by the strident shouts of irresponsible pundits and blogospheric hacks who take no responsibility for the effect their vitriol has on the larger tone of our culture.
I'll assume you made up this 'viewpoint' in order to smear the administration's opponents.
ReplyDeleteHe/She is pulling out out of his/her hinder. The Plame affair dates from after the war.
"Traitor deserves death" made its first real big run at popularity in the run up to the invasion
After a while, Glenn, you start connecting the dots and realize that most of the MSM is composed of people who, for one reason or another, just do not care about America, and/or actively support her enemies.
ReplyDeleteThus the coded anti-semitism of the right.
Those nudge nudge wink wink "elitist cosmopolitans" on the upper-west-side of NYC hate America and want to "stab our troops in the back".
The more things change.....
From anonymous at 3:22pm:
ReplyDeleteWhy is this so hard for you to understand?
That was all irony and parody, wasn't it?
Shooter242 said...
ReplyDelete....Considering that the "traitor deserves death" theme originated with the Plame affair, directed at Rove et al
What do you expect from a person so clueless he only reads Instantputz, Powertools and Malkintent?
Stabbed in the Back!
The Republican platform that Ike ran on in the fall of 1952 was a freefall into fantasy, a fatal compact by party moderates with a right wing that would eventually push them into extinction. For the first time since the Civil War era, one major American political party charged another one with treason. Democrats were accused of having “shielded traitors to the Nation in high places” and creating “enemies abroad where we should have friends.” Democrats were responsible for all “110,000 American casualties” in Korea, where they had “produced stalemates and ignominious bartering with our enemies” that “offer no hope of victory.” Republicans promised to “repudiate all commitments contained in secret understandings such as those of Yalta which aid Communist enslavements.”
I'm glad you've focused on Charles Johnson, one of the dumbest and most venal idiots in the pro-Bush blogosphere. He's been doing the Media Are the Enemy dance for years. (Google it.)
ReplyDeleteAh, shooter, welcome back. I see that folks here have already mentioned Oklahoma City, which -- if I remember correctly -- virtually everyone initially attributed to "Islamic extremists." This was before any of you experts in "Islamofascism" ever heard of al Quaeda, of course.
ReplyDeleteMy own example is more modest. In the past couple of decades, there've been more than a few Planned Parenthood clinics blown up or torched, and more than one ObGyn assassinated. By liberals, by "Islamofascists?" No, not. What a pity, eh? It does kinda water down the thesis that all anti-social violence is committed by liberals.
And while we're on the subject, I have to ask you: liberals? LIBERALS? You're not well-versed on the spectrum of left politics, I have to say. Liberals have often been laughed at on the left because none of them would even consider Leninist tactics. To their credit, wouldn't you say?
You wouldn't? Bad for the thesis, too, I suppose. Again, a great pity.
If I had to guess, I'd say your credibility is greater on LGF than it is here. This is undoubtedly due to your own ignorance, and to your cavalier attitude toward facts which don't conform to the ideological point it seems to be your sworn duty to make. In my view, that's not a pity at all. It's what you deserve, plain and simple.
The real angry, ugly amoricon... This leaves me beyond words. I would just like some reaction from you. Personally I am angry.
ReplyDeleteI think you are just lonely and looking for traffic at your boring blog.
I say this----------------->
ReplyDeleteThank you for another interesting post, Glenn. I agree with other posters that the left blogosphere is getting more attention because the left is ascendant and the right is descendant.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a reason to ignore them, either by Glenn or the MSM. The right has been steadily moving the argument rightwards for years, and now we're pretty much left with the extreme right. The mainstream right has looked pretty incompetent and clueless with their failed policies. We can't even argue democracy promotion anymore.
What we're seeing now is, I think, the last gasps of a dying conservative movement. As they get less popular, there are by definition more "enemies," therefore they call for more and more violence against larger groups of people.
I think it's really important to watch the rightwing blogs and radio because it will determine which way the country goes. Will we continue our march towards facism or will we return from the brink of insanity? People won't know what the right is really saying if we don't highlight it, since we can't depend on the MSM to talk about it. In a way, I guess the attention paid to lefty blogs could be a plus, if only to let the media see what is actually going on in this country.
eric rudolph - islamo-feminazi-gay-liberal?
ReplyDeleteGuess that's why we didn't pursue the death penalty against him.
I agree with other posters that the left blogosphere is getting more attention because the left is ascendant and the right is descendant.
ReplyDeleteThe Right controls every branch of government in this country and the Left controls none.
I would think, therefore, that it's more worthwhile to examine the dynamic on the Right, particularly among its extremists, than that on the Left.
From Ann Coulter’s latest call for death to journalists:
ReplyDeleteIn December 1972, Ronald Reagan called President Richard Nixon after watching Walter Cronkite's coverage of the Vietnam War on "CBS ews," telling Nixon that "under World War II circumstances, the network would have been charged with treason."
The links provided are basic “search” links on Reagan and Nixon, and do not substantiate this story. Does anyone have any information on these claims?
Quite frankly, I don’t see how Nixon could possibly charge “the most trusted man in America” with treason – it would’ve been politically unthinkable.
No doubt, Nixon didn’t like the coverage, but I don’t remember anyone prominent seriously calling for Cronkite and CBS to be charged with "treason" – does anyone remember that?
Is this just Ann dishonestly trying to wrap her calls for “frying” journalists in St. Ronnie attempting to give them historical respectability?
Now Reagan said some really despicable things back then (about shooting protesters etc.), but if he said this, I’d like an actual quote – something that Ann failed to provide.
And when those enemies have made it abundantly clear that they wish to kill many of us and utterly destroy our way of life, well, that kind of makes us dislike those who give them any kind of aid and comfort.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
Why is it so hard for you to understand that we don't like people who are trying to kill us either but we also are not controlled in our thoughts and are capable of seeing the road the right is leading us is only making it worse. No one who still has their critical thinking skills believes that Iraq has been anything but a tragic foolish failure brought on by people who ENDANGER us. They have turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground and have the entire world, not just terrorists, hating our nation with their inept short sighted policies. You make excuses for them, that is NOT being patriotic or standing up for your country as you are conditioned to believe.
Your movement with your support of these small inept people are the ones who are endangering us. Why couldn’t we have gotten OBL, because the child king wanted to put troops in Iraq. Why didn't we get Zarqawi two years ago? because your blind leadership wanted war in Iraq. These are facts, yet your movement, like the cult it has become, makes excuses and blames your fellow Americans for our nation’s insane direction. Do you really think that by rooting for war in Iraq it would change directions. Even your leaders don't really believe that anymore.
How do you watch this http://tinyurl.com/j6ja3 and not truly fear for your country being in these people's hands? I know it is not a way to talk to a member of a cult by criticizing their cult leader, you are trained to close your mind to anything negative about the leader, you are trained to call us “Bush haters” so you don’t have to deal with it – we don’t hate him - but Bush is sad little man and he endangers us all.
Why do you support him? You think it is patriotic to aid the destruction of your country. As we go down this death spiral conservatives are leading us down, yes we will likely get to the point of no return, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, some attention to the Middle East, capturing OBL and killing Zarqawi might have had us going in a different direction?
We have two and half more years of inept leadership by a man only the cult conservatism thinks is up to the job. We fear for our future more than you. All you have to do is hope they bomb someone, you don’t have deal the rest of it. Your movement makes you feel safe, that is what cults do, but in reality your leaders have been leading us to a very dark place and the left has seen this coming and that is why we are at wits end..
Snap out of it, please.
If this rhetoric persists it's only a matter of time before some brave "patriot" fulfills Ann Coulter's wish and bombs the New York Times.
ReplyDeleteSince these ideologically driven "conservatives" are unable to entertain the possibility that their policy might be accountable for the results of their policy they must blame someone else for the failures of their governance. So they blame those that don't believe, like a medium who has failed to demonstrate evidence of the supernatural might blame the naysayers in the crowd for such failure.
This is a cognitive device that allows one to maintain beliefs dogmatically, as it is heads I win, tails you lose thinking.
Glenn - thank you for another thought-provoking post. You've probably already seen it, but Digby has a post today on the right-wing blogs where the comments/text glorify in the violence (blown-up children, that sort of thing) in the Israel/Lebanon battle.
ReplyDelete(a different Anonymous)
Shooter242 proves he's the only one with a head full of mush and probably a pantload of it too.
ReplyDeleteYou people are pathetic and weak and you are all going to faint.
is this true? said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Ann Coulter’s latest call for death to journalists:
Who really gives a crap? They were both criminal pathological morons. One of them was pardoned and the other "didn't recall" himself out of an indictment or impeachment.
It sounds like it. Like I said, as Baker observes in "Stabbed in the Back!" it began in 1952. Read it.
fwiw- Robert Capa, not Kapa.
ReplyDeleteanonymous poster #whatever- at least this liberal thinks that our democratic ideals are more robust than a mcdonald's franchise of terrorists. It is the fear generated by reactionaries in this nation that endangers democracy. Terrorists may be able to attack specific buildings or cities, but they cannot take down this nation without the cooperation of groups that use outdated military concepts to dismantle terrorism.
The current administration seems intent on bankrupting this nation by its economic and military policies. They seem to be helping the terrorists by this tactic. Should I then say they are aligned with them?
What if we had poured money into training to infiltrate groups and dismantle them, rather than firing translators because they were gay? The right wing does not seem to be able to grasp that current issues cannot be solved by collective punishment, but that's all they seem to offer.
I support both Israeli and Palestinians' right to a nation, or nations...and two of them seems to be the only way that peace will ever be brokered...but this peace will not be brokered when the U.S. does not hold Israel to the same standards it uses for others who attack civilian populations. The U.S. loses its moral authority by its unquestioning support of Israel's actions.
The right wing loses any authority by not condemning those who vomit eliminationist rhetoric...but then, you've got Pat Robertson, a presidential candidate, doing the same. How anyone can support the right wing in this nation and claim to also believe in democracy is beyond my comprehension.
Let's not forget that many in the right-wingosphere were calling for everyone - especially those on the left - to view the video of the recent beheadings of the two US soldiers so we could "understand" terrorism. Yet, they're offended by a NYT photographer taking a picture of a sniper?
ReplyDeleteHypocrites.
is this true? said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Ann Coulter’s latest call for death to journalists
This is a meme she started in her book Treason. I have no idea if it is true. It wouldn't surpise me if it was a lie. It wouldn't surprise me if it were true. That's both funny and sad.
You may get a kick out of this.
http://www.reload.ws/blog/Chapter11.htm
is this true?: Is this just Ann dishonestly trying to wrap her calls for “frying” journalists in St. Ronnie attempting to give them historical respectability?
ReplyDeleteI can't help you with a source, but this kind of rhetorical balderdash is consistent with the sorts of things RR used to say when he was Governor of CA. Of course he wasn't "St. Ronnie" then, even to the right.
What's interesting to me is that no one would have dared say something like that publicly about Walter Cronkite at the time. About Jerry Rubin, or Dave Dellinger, maybe, but not about WC.
I'm by no means suggesting that he deserved his reputation, but the truth is that WC was widely perceived to be objective and non-partisan, a benevolent paterfamilias. The right didn't like him, but it'd have been risky to attack him openly.
And now look, eh? It's hard for me to imagine myself behind some sandbags with a sniper rifle at the NYT building, defending those gasbags against Ann Coulter's suicide bombers, but hey...the world we've got is the world we've all made together. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
It may seem a bit cliche at this time, but I think the reason that reporters don't criticize right wing blogs is...they don't want to be called liberals.
ReplyDeleteAnd Glenn forgot to add one very important question that right wing bloggers need to answer:
What's with the long-ass blogrolls? Are they trying to convince themselves that they are some kind of army, or what?
Actually this is an example of why some righty blogs don't allow comments. From mydd.com about three comments down from the "expose" of right wing commentary....
ReplyDeleteThe comment pointed out here was generated by an 'insult generator'. You can find quite a few on google.
b
Ironically, one of the earliest suggestions that outing Valerie Plame was an act of treason came from notorious moonbat, Donald Luskin, writing for that hotbed of liberalim, the NRO. Responding to an early Krugman piece about the Plame affair, he wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt's an extraordinarily serious allegation, tantamount to accusing Bush administration officials of treason:
"... Bush administration officials have exposed the identity of a covert operative. That happens to be a criminal act ... "
Oh, and shooter, bart -- that part about the sniper rifle was a m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r. Please, please don't be citing me somewhere as one of your fascist, violent, leftist America haters who only wants to kill defenders of our liberties, okay?
ReplyDeleteActually this is an example of why some righty blogs don't allow comments. From mydd.com about three comments down from the "expose" of right wing commentary....
ReplyDeleteGuess those wingnut blog admins just can't figure out how to delete, huh?
The comment pointed out here was generated by an 'insult generator'. You can find quite a few on google.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before, I'll say it again. Modern bots and AI are smarter than Shooter and Bart and the rest of them. They are pathetic excuses for sentient beings. They are lucky they live in a society that doesn't put the mentally retarded to death too often.
fauxreal said...
ReplyDeletefwiw- Robert Capa, not Kapa.
I just saw a great bit on PBS about him recently.
William....
This is me, upper left.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/
Anonymous: This is me, upper left.
ReplyDeleteAh, an honest to goodness terra-ist, and right out there in front of God and everybody. Don't tell shooter, he'll have the DHS rounding up every kittycat from San Diego to Bangor.
Much obliged for the larf.
Reagan used to attribute this quote to Norman Thomas:
ReplyDelete"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." -- Norman Thomas, Socialist Party Presidential Candidate in 1940, 1944 and 1948, co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
He just made it up. The guy was an actor and couldn't distinguish movies from reality before the Alzheimers. We should not ignore these people, but anyone who believes a word they ever said or worships them, Nixon, Reagan or Coulter should be on medication of some kind.
Here's what you get when you go off the meds.... Commando style bank jobs.
Probe: Robbers Used Weapons Smuggled From Iraq by Soldier
Just wait. Stuff will start blowing up soon.
Anon. On second thought, go ahead and tell him. They're not getting my kittycat until they pry her from my dead, cold fingers ;-)
ReplyDeleteShooter242 said...
ReplyDeleteFor Fluffy....
I got this in the first three pages of Googling "traitor hang Rove". Where have you been? If there are any doubts as to the virulence fo liberal commentary please peruse the references and the pages they came from......
Oh, frabjous joy! An actual response with citations! Thanks for the cites; the last 3 are wholly legit in that they predate the current RW traitor meme by ~1 year and come from the more widely read left-of-center websites. They can't be as readily passed off as merely payback talk.
Hmmm. A "young skull full of mush."
You need to be well over 45 to legitimately insult me on this basis. I remember the Cold War. It's why so much of the RW effort to gin up a similar social response to islamic terrorists doesn't impress me. When I was young we had ICBMs pointed at all our cities and bases, read to go at the press of a button.
John Dean's superb new book, Conservatives Without Conscience (which has been #1 on Amazon for most of the week), analyzes the transformation of American "conservatism" from a political ideology based on the imperatives of limiting government power into a movement predominated by authoritarian impulses and personalities...
ReplyDeleteOn his book tour, Dean -- who spent his life as such a mainstream Republican that he worked in the highest levels of the Nixon White House --has been observing that his political views have really not changed over the past 30 years...
That is because the political spectrum itself has shifted radically, and the movement which now most loudly describes itself as "conservative" bears little resemblance to the political movement of which Dean, for his entire life, considered himself a part.
Just so I can get this straight, John Dean, who facilitated or participated in:
- spying on journalists
- breaking into homes and doctors offices because of a story in the NYT
- attempting to put journalists in jail
- spying on political parties
- using agents to provoke protesters and manipulate media coverage
- a presidency that helped define cult of personality
is shocked, just shocked, I tell you, that:
...pro-Bush "conservatism" [that] is a highly authoritarian movement which seeks to vest unlimited and unrestrained power in their Leader, views garden-variety political dissent as blasphemy and treason, and glorifies violence as a justifiable tool to achieve their glorious political ends.
Dean's historical revisionism and redemption without change is a self serving pathetic attempt to cash in on those whose who see partisanship as both moral compass and prayer beads.
Glenn, I am honestly surprised you can buy this narrative with a straight face.
Instead of yet another story on whether Kos diarists are arguing with each other more than before...
Glenn, either talk about the "Townhouse" affair or don't, but the snippy little inside Kos baseball comments that keep finding their way into your posts is trying to have it both ways.
I think the Kos diaries you are so obliquely referring to are wonderful examples of the blind lock step partisanship you talk about so eloquently. As a side note, why in the world do they still let Armando post?
The Bush administration is doing an excellent job manipulating the 25% that will pledge their allegiance to the republican party. You are doing an excellent job cataloging and refuting these propaganda points.
It is uncritical partisan thinking that is the root of this problem and the democratic 25% may only seem less shrill and absurd because they have no conductor. The Rove symphony is steamrolling freeform jazz and poetry slam night at the coffee house.
As we approach the election, there is an electricity and sense of events unfolding faster with the chatter and din increasing in chaos and volume. This is Rove as David Lynch pulling a scene from normality into a dizzying mood of dread, nausea and deja vu.
"No hay banda." It is a recording.
William....Don't tell shooter, he'll have the DHS rounding up every kittycat from San Diego to Bangor.
ReplyDeleteHadn't you heard? Shooter shot his dialing fingers off to avoid military service. He was aiming for his toe.
last brain frozen....
ReplyDeleteAttack the messenger? OK...
Brain freeze from a Big Gulp!!
I just grow weary of the futility of responding intelligently to these people. I have limited patience. Pearls before swine.
So anyone not actively picking up arms against "our" enemies is an enemy worthy of death?
ReplyDeleteNo innocent bystanders reporting what they saw?
No neutral observers for history?
No record of the reality?
Guess that explains the 30,000 + dead Iraqis.
Last Brain Frozen's "source".
ReplyDeleteSilent Coup
Book by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin in which they contend that John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters to protect his future wife, then named Maureen Biner, by removing information linking her to a call-girl ring that worked for the DNC.
It was described as one of "the most boring conspiracy books ever written" filled with "wild charges and vilifications" by The Washington Post. The New York Times Book Review said the book showed "a stunning ignorance of how the Government under Mr. Nixon operated."
We should all be glad this cretin does this with his spare time instead of give in to his urges to hang out at the playground and molest small children.
Dean's historical revisionism and redemption without change is a self serving pathetic attempt to cash in on those whose who see partisanship as both moral compass and prayer beads.
ReplyDeleteGlenn, I am honestly surprised you can buy this narrative with a straight face.
Yeah - I think we should take the guy who has the #1 book in the country documenting the authoritarian impulses fueling the Bush movement - and who also has been one of the most eloquent and forceful opponents of the Bush administration's abuses of power -- and attack him as being impure because of his association with a Republican administration 35 years ago. That'd be really smart.
I think the Kos diaries you are so obliquely referring to are wonderful examples of the blind lock step partisanship you talk about so eloquently. As a side note, why in the world do they still let Armando post?
If you believe these issues actually matter - that these are the questions people should be spending time answering - then I'm not surprised (actually, I'm quite relieved) that you disagree with my topic choices.
There are lots of blogs which want to talk about disputes between Kos diarists and every other Kos intrigue of the day. If you believe those are the critical issues of the day, why aren't you at those blogs exploring them?
If any of you are interested, for educational purposes to listen to Ann Coulter and Melanie Morgan laughing about the method of execution of Bill Keller.
ReplyDeleteThen they go on to say:
Wilson is a traitor.
Plame wasn't undercover.
I also went to Free Republic to see if in fact they spent their time arguing about various ways to execute journalists. They did.
Ann Coulter on the Melanie Morgan Program KSFO, from the educational collection of Spocko's Brain
Part 2 of the July 14th interview with Ann Coulter on Melanie Morgan's KSFO show. From the educational collection of Spocko's Brain
With THIS type of reporting, especially on TV – what do you expect? The wingnut blogs are the least of our worries
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteTHIS is what is happening while you babble on and on about why they lying liars in the MSM don’t report on the lying bloggers and wingnuts.
Not your best post, glenn
You need to see a physician about that. Glenn's an attorney. I'd suggest internal medicine or Proctologist. Perhaps a Gastroenterologist. It looks like Giardia. Nasty.
The Major: If you want to play with the big boys you cant cry if you get hurt.
ReplyDeleteHey, big boy (nudge nudge, wink wink) Is that a pistol in your pocket, or...? And if you don't want to play, maybe you know a Colonel somewhere who likes hurting people....
(Christ, this is too easy. My momma told me it was a sin to mock the afflicted, and she was right; I should be ashamed of myself.)
I admire your ability to read the garbage on the wingnutosphere. I just can't do it, although I do think I read and watch enough MSM to have a good idea of what they're saying.
ReplyDeleteThe Major: I've never seen so much profanity and hate as when I make the mistake of going to liberal sights like this one. Or even daily kos. That's one deranged place. No wonder conservatives are angry. They feel threatened by all this anger and rage and violence. I feel threatened whern I see it to.
ReplyDeleteWell, as someone recently said, "If you want to play with the big boys you cant cry if you get hurt."
Here's some more good old fashioned throw critics of the President in prison, American as apple pie sentiment from Blogs for Bush
ReplyDeleteWe really do need to prosecute Joe Wilson and others (likely at the DNC and Kerry campaign) who cooked up this whole, bogus story in an election year ploy to try and slander the President in to defeat in November of 2004. That it didn't work just shows the innate wisdom of the American people - but the people guilty of this con job need to see the inside of a jail cell.
Yes, it’s time for some article on the pro-Bush blogoshere – way over due as a matter of fact – but maybe we should talk about why that won’t be happening.
ReplyDeleteIf they did, that would mean acknowledgement of just how ugly, perverse and authoritarian the “base” really is. And journalists have to ask themselves, can the public handle the truth? And they answer is, well, no, I don’t think their ready for this.
Really, are we going to hear the media actually say that fascism is fashionable among Bush’s strongest supporters? I don’t think so. The screams of “liberal media” “hate-America” and “hang the traitors” would be too much to handle. So, it’s just better to ignore what’s happening to the party that controls our government, and what its supporters actually believe.
Americans can’t handle the truth. They want to be entertained, they want “idols” and they want the latest gossip of the “stars” – who wore what, and who is dating who. That’s what they want.
For God’s sake, don’t bore them with articles that their democracy is dying, and that cretins who are essentially the mirror image of the fundamentalist terrorists we’re fighting against have become respectable, and indeed, “the” establishment in this country.
No, I’m sorry, no editor would approve an article like that. Who needs the bomb threats?
Yes, let’s have a look at those left-wing bloggers. I hear some of them use bad words.
That should be interesting.
From the major at 7:18pm:
ReplyDeleteWhy do you insist on defending the MSM Glenn?
My gods. He get's even more incoherent the longer he tries to talk. Incredible.
That's astounding, Delphine. Do you have a link?
ReplyDeleteGlenn,
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you could help me, I'm trying to find out this:
How is it possible to draft a law that makes it impossible to sue the government for its misdeeds? Doesn't that contradict the right for "redress of grievances" in the Constitution?
I seem to remember an example from a number of years ago of a bill being drafted in Congress that would make it illegal to try to change the bill in the future. I couldn't believe that was possible, either.
Thanks,
Jeff
Do you think tommorrow they'll be demanding that John Snow be executed for treason?
ReplyDeleteCowpunk said...
ReplyDeleteThat's astounding, Delphine. Do you have a link?
The "traitorous and left wing site" Defense Tech broke this story about a week ago.
White House NYT Bashers: Hypocrites
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002546.html
How is it possible to draft a law that makes it impossible to sue the government for its misdeeds? Doesn't that contradict the right for "redress of grievances" in the Constitution?
ReplyDeleteIt's not possible. There is no bill that does this. The Specter bill consolidates all cases in front of the FISA court, and allows that court to issue its ruling in secret (but also allows it to dismiss the suit, just as other suits can be dismissed). But that bill doesn't ban legal challenges.
delphine said...
ReplyDeleteThe comments coming thick and fast kept me from responding in a timely manner to the bullshit about how "Islamofascists" wouldn't enslave women like Israel supposed does according to some linked story.
Nobody said that. You need to read what's written before you spout off. There is a very ugly sex trade that borders on slavery in Israel. The subjugation of women is a seperate issue that happens in many different cultures and religions, including Christian democracies, like Switzeland, where one canton (state) didn't even give women the vote until 1977 and India which is predominantly Hindu. You need to check out reading comprehension so you can inform yourself better.
C'mon, we know the whole Plame Wilson affair was just the result of a bunch of idiots at the CIA trying to paint the administration in a bad light. And what a bunch of idiots they are.
ReplyDeleteThere was one defection from the group, Alan Foley. He was the one that Joe Wison said in the Vanity Fair article was Plames boss, which Foley denies completely. In fact, he said he never even heard of Plame or Wilson before this whole shitstorm started.
He is either 1) telling the truth, or 2) lying his ass off to get as far away from these morons as possible.
Larry Johnson will probably end up in jail over this matter. I can't believe he is the media's "go-to guy". For some reason they use him as a CIA expert, despite the fact that he was nothing more than a low level analyst (whatever the hell that means) almost twenty years ago and his tenure there was only a couple of years.
Johnson -you know the guy that Novak just "happened to bump into" on the street and got questions from out of the blue about Plame - was heard saying that Ehud Olmert has had no military experience at all....never mind the fact that Olmert's experience is extensive, well-known and easily verifiable even for a dumbshit like Johnson.
Was Johnson 1) purposely disseminating more lies, or 2) is he just that effing stupid?
Merry Frischmas!
Thanks, Glenn!
ReplyDeleteJeff
Glenn:
ReplyDeleteJohn Dean's superb new book, Conservatives Without Conscience (which has been #1 on Amazon for most of the week), analyzes the transformation of American "conservatism" from a political ideology based on the imperatives of limiting government power into a movement predominated by authoritarian impulses and personalities -- a transformation I have also written about extensively. On his book tour, Dean -- who spent his life as such a mainstream Republican that he worked in the highest levels of the Nixon White House -- has been observing that his political views have really not changed over the past 30 years, but he now finds himself accused by pro-Bush conservatives of standing on the "left" side of the political spectrum.
1) Like Clinton, Nixon followed the polls religiously and drifted with the ideological winds of the day - which were radical leftist at that time. Doubling the government bureaucracy and entitlement programs, raising taxes, wage and price controls and initiating the appeasement known as detente are hardly conservative actions. The conservatives in the GOP openly rebelled after Nixon was run out of town and chased the left wing of the GOP out of the party over the next 15 years.
2) The felon Dean was part and parcel of the GOP left which the conservatives ran out of the party. Dean does not have a constituency in my party. Rather, he spends his time attacking the GOP. The Donkeys can have him.
To underscore the point, Djerejian, in a separate post this week, publishes a letter from a U.S. solider serving in the Middle East who laments that "the shocking intelligence/ reasonability/ credibility free-fall at Instapundit is closely mirrored" by Bush followers everywhere, who refuse to believe reality about the war, who ascribe blame for all failures to a treasonous media or anti-American liberals rather than to the administration, and who place blind faith in the infallibility of Bush's actions, a syndrome which the solider describes as "a very common disease."
Interesting how this alleged soldier isn't named.
There are dozens of blogs run by service members in Iraq. None of them sound like this and the bloggers all identify themselves.
Perhaps this alleged "soldier" does not exist. It would not be the first time.
When it becomes commonplace to hurl accusations of treason against domestic political opponents, or when calls for imprisonment and/or hanging of journalists and political leaders become the daily fare -- all of which is true for the pro-Bush blogosphere -- those are serious developments. And they merit discussion and examination by the media.
I agree. The charges of treason should be seriously examined to determine if they have any merit. Glenn, why don't you do a legal analysis (with actual laws this time) to see of the NYT disclosure of top secret intelligence programs to the enemy can support a criminal charge (as opposed to the epithet) of treason. If you do an objective job, I think you might be surprised by what you find.
UPDATE: Helpfully right on cue, LGF has a post today entitled "The Media are the Enemy" -- a title which really summarizes one of the principal points made on a daily basis by the blogs maintained by Powerline, Instapundit, and Malkin. Today's treasonous act is that a NYT photographer took photographs of a member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in combat with American forces. Apparently, taking a photograph of someone engaged in a war is the same as aiding and abetting them and being on their side and rooting for them to win. Hence, photographers who take photographs of the enemy are themselves "the enemy."
Did you stop reading after the headline of that LGF post? There is much more...
To start, this photog has published a book of photographs (not just a single photo) entitled "In the Company of God."
At the time these photographs were taken, the Mahdi Army militia was attempting to conquer the Shia holy city of Najif and was killing Iraqi and US soldiers.
In the Company of God is being advertised with the following:
In the Company of God is a photographic compilation that portrays Iraqi Shi'a Muslims in a period of occupation and transition. This photographic body of work, recorded over twelve months, richly captures the Shi'as' intense commitment to their faith and their indomitable spirit of sacrifice.
About the pictures
The pictures in this book are not displayed in a chronological order but rather in a manner that best illustrates a narrative about faith, sacrifice, war and martyrdom. They were taken while on assignment for The New York Times, from July 30 to November 3, 2003, from January 16 till April 1, 2004, from June16 until August 30, 2004, and again from January 18, 2005 until March 31, 2005.
This blatant, in your face enemy propaganda doesn't at all upset you, does it?
Imagine instead that the photag was embedded with the Nazis in France and published a book entitled "In the Company of Aryans." The advertising for the book read:
In the Company of Aryans is a photographic compilation that portrays German Aryan soldiers in a period of occupation and transition in France. This photographic body of work, recorded over twelve months, richly captures the Nazis intense commitment to their Fatherland and their indomitable will to victory.
About the pictures
The pictures in this book are not displayed in a chronological order but rather in a manner that best illustrates a narrative about the Fatherland, sacrifice, war and dying at the hand of Americans. They were taken while on assignment for The New York Times in France between June 6, 1944 and January 3, 1945.
Do you think that Truman might have prosecuted this scumbag photag for treason (presuming he is a citizen)? If not, go read the post WWII treason for propaganda decisions by the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
The NYT description of the photograph which you deem harmless is similarly revealing:
A sniper loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr fires towards U.S. positions in the cemetery in Najaf, Iraq.
Michele McNally: “Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage.”
1) This scumbag is photographing a sniper attempting to kill our soldiers in order to "illustrate a narrative about faith, sacrifice, war and martyrdom" of our enemy.
2) The NYT not only employs this scumbag, but glorifies his propaganda.
3) To what "incredible courage" is the NYT referring? This scumbag obviously entered into a deal with enemies of the United States to provide propaganda in exchange for access.
4) A strategy letter captured in the building where we killed Zarqawi discussed that the only part of the al Qaeda war plan which is working was using our media to spread al Qaeda propaganda.
Tell me again why the righty bloggers are off in la la land accusing the NYT and its scumbag photoag of treason and disloyalty???
This is only the latest example.
The important point here is that the liberal blogosphere has received substantial -- really, endless -- media attention over the past few months
ReplyDeleteThis was due to entirely legitimate issues about the appearances of corruption, specifically related to Jerome Armstrong and Kos, and coverage of those newsworthy issues was largely driven by moderate liberal publications like The New Republic and Slate. This is quite different from what you're trying to do - what is obviously just a partisan strategic decision you're taking part in with marching orders from the Townhouse.
coverage which has included everything from the upsetting use of bad words
Um, no, it was a mentally ill stalker of a college instructer making threatening comments about someone's child (and she still has not stopped). That was an unusual and exceptional occurance. There was a right winger who created an unusual stir and ruined his career when he turned out to be a hardcore plagiarist, and this got media attention as well, as it deserved. In contract, you may not agree with Jeff Goldstein's opinion about a photographer's neutrality in Iraq, but all that is is a difference of opinion (something you seem intolerant of), to be worked out through debate.
In addition to the Media Matters items, there are numerous unreported stories regarding the right-wing blogosphere that are of great significance.
LOL! I couldn't finish your post because you're just so damn long-winded with your propaganda. The Townhouse is becoming the laughingstock of the blogosphere. And btw, why you think Glenn Reynolds is supposed to police everything that's on any web site he links to is absurd.
To steve davis: Your notion that the lefty blogosphere gets more heat because the lefty blogosphere is relevant and the conservative and libertarian blogs are not is pretty ridiculous. The entire blogosphere is relevant and blogs of the full range of political stripes have made, and are making, differences. Do I have to start listing all the ways conservative and libertarian bloggers have made siginificant impacts? Don't be so partisan in your thinking. With the Townhouse and all that, you guys are beginning to get the rep of cultists.
Again, the reason the liberal blogosphere took heat recently was because of the alleged corruptions, something some Left bloggers (including some Kos fans) have also posted concerns about, and somethong Kos and Jerome Armstrong have yet to clear up.
I voted for Kerry - that is, against Bush - during a time of war.
ReplyDeleteDoes that make me guilty of sedition and treason too? I mean, I really did want Bush to lose.
Neil Boortz isn't sure if you or al Qaeda is more dangerous. He's leaning towards you, though.
Let review wingnut logic, shall we?
ReplyDeleteRove did not disclose the name of a non-covert CIA operative, so therefore he is guity of treason.
The NYT publishes details of a classified, very legal and very effective anti-terrorism program, puposely causing us to lose a critical tool in the WOT which would help prevent Islamo-fascist terrorists from slaughtering even more men, women and innocent children...and their patriots?
Huh?
Merry Frischmas
dipshit, aside from working for the army newspaper, what is the military experience of Olmert?
ReplyDeleteI'm not taking sides against Israel here, just have a bit of an issue with your fact gathering.
In a comment which can only undermine your claim that he has vast military experience, Olmert himself says, "I remember prime ministers with military experience who made decisions we would not want to repeat."
So aside from working for the journal, what is there?
The important point here is that the liberal blogosphere has received substantial -- really, endless -- media attention over the past few months.
ReplyDeleteThis is because the Donkey media is fascinated with the leftist blogosphere's attempt to take over the Donkey Party. They have been since the Howard Dean raised a ton of money over the internet.
However, they don't seem to be all that interested in Dean and the leftist blogs utter failure to win any elections be-kos their ideas are rejected by most Donkeys nevertheless everyone else.
The righty blogs for the most part do not have the delusion that they run the GOP, not that the media generally has a clue about what makes the GOP win.
Here's a link to the Boortz comment.
ReplyDeleteI said: Again, the reason the liberal blogosphere took heat recently was because of the alleged corruptions, something some Left bloggers (including some Kos fans) have also posted concerns about, and somethong Kos and Jerome Armstrong have yet to clear up.
ReplyDeleteI should add that, rather than wanting these corruption issues to be cleared up, Greenwald was a loyal Townhouse propagandist trying to keep the light of day from being shined on them by finding ways to smear New Republic journalists and distract attention. Thus, the issues still fester. Issues that were raised by moderate liberal news sites, and not just discussed on conservative blogs (who obviously would want to pile on) but also on some lefty blogs (including long, concerned posts by Kos members themselves).
Here is a prime example posted today at the aptly named Right Wing Nut House blog attached to a post titled "THE NEW YORK TIMES - ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE"
ReplyDeleteDEagle Said:
6:08 pm
Catnip,
Mercy, I guess that to be a journalist means no allegiance to any county or right or wrong. Well, If that is the case, kill all the journalists during war (works for me if that is the case). Is that blunt enough for you…
That's definitely blunt enough alright. People like that are dangerous.
The pictures in this book are not displayed in a chronological order but rather in a manner that best illustrates a narrative about the Fatherland, sacrifice, war and dying at the hand of Americans. They were taken while on assignment for The New York Times in France between June 6, 1944 and January 3, 1945.
ReplyDeleteBZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT.
You lose.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteIF WE HAD REAL JOURNALISTS THERE WOULD NOT BE SUCH A STRONG AND POWERFUL NEOCON WINGNUT FACTION IN THE US!
ReplyDeleteYou just hurt Karl Rove's feelings.
So you voted for the dem in Bush versus Kerry
ReplyDeleteCan't say that says a lot...
What's with the handle - are you related to the HUMES that make the sewerage pipes?
Oh, the focus is just on the photographer now and off the general theme of the post. I get it - evade, ditch, dodge, change the subject, go on the offensive.
ReplyDeleteHere's the theme of the post -
Should there be stories about blogs that want to kill reporters, voters and politicians that don't do what the President says?
And seixon - the use of "not!" should be a sign to pop wayne's world out of the vcr.
The reason the extremist right is having a hissy fit about Joao Silva is pretty easy to figure out.
ReplyDeleteThey know they've lost in Iraq.
First let's get the basics out of the way. The Mahdi army isn't the equivalent of the Nazis. The US military knows exactly where Sadr is and hasn't tried to kill him yet (openly anyway). Sadr's party is part of the govering coalition we're trying to encourage to "stand up so we can stand down". The US government has trained Shiites (including members of the Dawa party and Sciri) to be part of the Iraqi military.
A slightly less ridiculous equivalent would be gansta rap. The Crips and Bloods have shot at cops and yet the culture industry is full of gangsta chic, not my cup of tea but not exactly the equivalent of the Nazis either.
But even if Sadr were the equivalent of Hermann Goering, the hystrical comparisons of the Mahdi army with the Nazis would still throw the extreme right in a bad light. My grandfather fought in the Pacific during the Second World War and yet he was an avid collector of Japanese military kitsch. Most of the readers of LGF probably collect Wermacht memorabilia anyway.
The key distinction is that the United States beat the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists and that it's not winning in Iraq. And the more Bush's misguided little adventure falls apart, the more the Middle East descends into chaos, the more we're going to see over the top attacks on the media.
On a positive note, the photographs by Joao Silva are excellent and thanks to Michelle Malkin and Charles Johnson, I'll be able to buy a copy of his book when it's published. Had they not thrown their little hissy fit, I never would have heard of him.
BTW, I still want to know why that right-wing answer to Cartier Bresson, the one and only master of hand shake,flare and the camera phone, the one and only "Zombie" isn't a traitor for taking photos of anti-war protesters instead of tearing their signs out of their hands.
Not this again!
ReplyDelete"What's with the handle - are you related to the HUMES that make the sewerage pipes?"
comeon, do we need more arguments about the relevancy of apostrophes?
Or is this a joke...
To the "FAUX LIBERAL" Obsessive - It took you 4 months of posting the same idiotic, imbalanced message over and over here on my blog, but you're now banned from posting here. All of your "FAUX LIBERAL/2,000 word count" comments will be immediately deleted. Congratulations on being only the second person I've ever banned from my blog (both leftists, for whatever that's worth).
ReplyDeleteWelcome, welcome guests from the right. In order to make you feel right at home, we've decided to open this evening's discussion with one of your favorite hymns. I'm sure you're all familiar with Das Horst Wessel-Lied, yes?
ReplyDelete(You're encouraged to sing along)
Okay, ah one, ah two...
Die Fahne hoch,
Die Reihe fest geschlos-sen...
From dipshite at 9:08pm:
ReplyDeleteC'mon, we know the whole Plame Wilson affair was just the result of a bunch of idiots at the CIA trying to paint the administration in a bad light. And what a bunch of idiots they are.
Until Fitzpatrick officially closes his investigation and all details are made public, it would well behoove you to refrain from commenting or speculating on the issue, if only to save time and embarrassment.
Our time, and your embarrassment that is.
But then, going by your comment here, its a little late to forestall the latter.
So you see nothing wrong with a photographer taking what are essentially propaganda photos for our enemies?
ReplyDeleteI reject the premise. The idea that those are propaganda photographs is idiotic. It is a very straightforward picture - a sniper is standing there with a rifle. What is even arguably propagandistic about that?
The only propaganda I see is the insistence by people like you that the media should cooperate with the administration's attempts to pretend that there is no insurgency. We have an administration which - with great destruction - has stuck its head in the sand and ignored and/or concealed all negative facts for years. It's hardly surprising that its followers would insist that the media do the same upon pain of being called a "traitor" (an accusation, incidentally, that is now used so blithely that it has become truly tiresome and is on the verge of losing any of its sting).
Oh, and the reason why the media don't report on the conservative blogosphere? I'll give you a hint: 70-80% of journalists are Democrats. Guess which blogs they are reading. Yeah, not the conservative ones.
Virtually all of the mainstream media articles on the liberal blogosphere have been extremely negative. They essentially echo the criticisms made by right-wing bloggers. What odd behavior for a super-liberal media that just loves liberal blogs.
Yawn....
ReplyDeleteNothing on the right, with your invalid inferences of what is being said, comes close to the express statements on Daily KOS and Democratic Underground.
Then you push the book of a disbarred lawyer and convicted felon as something anyone should give a damn about.
You might as well quote something from rapper West or one of the Tu Pak or Bigge Night blogs.
Your blog and the color of your rhetoric gets lower, more adjective filled, and less informative with each hate filled post of yours, Glenn.
Is it the talking points memo that all you lefties get in a secret listserv that's pushing this nonsense. Do you really think these pathetic efforts at silencing any criticism of the traitors to this country at the New York Times and elsewhere on the left will work.
Calling a traitor a traitor isn't a threat of violence. Its just plain talk about the reality of the situation. Sort of like saying the left are incompetent boobs incapable of defending this country because in reality they "hate" this country and the white european males who built it.
Says the "Dog"
In an interview by Mike Malloy, hear it here: http://www.bradblog.com/Audio/MikeMalloy_MikePapantonio_071206.mp3
ReplyDeleteMike Papantonio discussing their recent law suit over voter fraud notes that the MSM has an agenda. They need to not piss off the current crop of repubs in order to complete their consolidation of media. He notes they failed via Powell (the son).
If that is the case, then the repub pro-bush blogs are important as it is another assault on the senses (physical and logical). Keying on the left blogs helps re-enforce the memes used in the attempts to control the vote of the public. Dem's are bad is the message.
The MSM, Papantonio notes they have 900 days to get what they want. A monopoly on access to the JQ Public's senses (or another 4 years of neocon control).
It is the same old story. The MSM wants something, so they will do the bidding for those they want from.
"and the white european males who built it."
ReplyDeleteThat says so much, doesn't it?
DOGGIE YELPED: Your blog and the color of your rhetoric gets lower, more adjective filled, and less informative with each hate filled post of yours, Glenn.
ReplyDeleteIf I hated a blog as muc as you claim to, Id stop reading it. Im sure Glenn wont mind if you do that, Doggie. Why dont you?
To lonely on your no-traffic blog?
So you see nothing wrong with a photographer taking what are essentially propaganda photos for our enemies?
ReplyDeleteI must have seen hundreds of photos of insurgents firing weapons over the last few years. I've even seen video of them on the TV shown over and over again. So what is it that makes this picture "enemy propaganda" while all the others weren't?
"the major":
ReplyDeleteSure he SAYS it's a liberal and he's policing the crazy leftys but I guess we'll just have to take his word for that.
Oh, we have evidence. You;'re still here.
But then, everyone knows you're really a liberal under cover anyways....
Cheers,
But then, everyone knows you're really a liberal under cover anyways....
ReplyDeleteI used to think so too but judging from the quality of the newer trolls coming in, now I'm not so sure.
"Every day, a new traitor, more treason, more journalists and Democrats who deserve to be hanged."
ReplyDeleteYou know, I started reading these comments thinking: "Mr. Greenewald is right. The wingers are blowing a simple war photo all out of proportion in order to beat up the NYT."
Then I read Bart's admittedly better-thought-out comment. I'm now thinking that Mr. Greenwald (not for the first time) has engaged in rhetorical excess in a "ready,fire, aim" mode and just possibly regrets grabbing the photo "breaking news" item in support of his screed.
Loyal supporters will chime in with "yes, buts..." however, these mis-fires don't sell outside the confines of the choir.
I, for one, wish that a little more thought had gone into this post.
Yes, like an artillery attack, one can adjust with "over/under" fire until one is on target, but a more cogent approach would be much more effective for the uncommitted, but interested.
Yeah - I think we should take the guy who has the #1 book in the country documenting the authoritarian impulses fueling the Bush movement - and who also has been one of the most eloquent and forceful opponents of the Bush administration's abuses of power -- and attack him as being impure because of his association with a Republican administration 35 years ago. That'd be really smart.
ReplyDeleteIf John Dean could come up with something resembling a coherent narrative, I think he could offer a great deal to the debate of today. The idea that he was spying the the name of "a political ideology based on the imperatives of limiting government power", is absurd on its face.
Given the circumstances of Watergate it is much more plausible to argue that there has been no transformation at all in "conservatism" and the republican party. I am not sure if muddying the most obvious modern historical parallel with Dean's psychological need for redemption is the best version of the Watergate story that the democrats have to tell.
If you believe these issues actually matter - that these are the questions people should be spending time answering - then I'm not surprised (actually, I'm quite relieved) that you disagree with my topic choices.
I didn't bring it up. My only lingering interest in that topic is the "psychology of partisanship" and maybe the Springer aspect of how nuts some of Jerome's posts are.
I don't disagree with your topic choices. I try to challenge some of your posts. There is a difference between the two. My only real beef, besides trying to keep you honest, is that you never had to go "blue" with partisanship. You have stated your reasons and philosophy for posting the things you do and I can't disagree with your conclusions, but that doesn't change my view that this whole left/right nonsense is a big distraction that allows irrational thought and extremism to fester and grow.
There are lots of blogs which want to talk about disputes between Kos diarists and every other Kos intrigue of the day. If you believe those are the critical issues of the day, why aren't you at those blogs exploring them
Again, I didn't bring it up, and I did just get back from exploring the critical issues of the day at Kos, where this issue was artfully deflected by front paging the slogan that the media should have better things to do. This of course, leads to more people talking about it and finally we end up here.
Great about John Dean's book being #1 on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteSomeone please explain to me why the you all write about the "pro-Bush blogosphere" as if it were limited to the types of lunatic sites you keep talking about?
There is a group of powerful, widely cited lawyers who are virulently (but more quietly) pro-Bush who have blogs and who are methodically providing a legal basis for the dismantling of the Constitution of the United States.
Their words are read by many in power and are disseminated rather widely to the political community at large.
Why is everyone afraid to point that out?
Why doesn't the Volokh Conspiracy get mentioned in the list of pro-Bush blogs?
You all think Pam at Atlas Shugs has more influence in this country than Orin Kerr?
This is just baffling. Why the emphasis on the Privates, while the Generals are allowed to conduct the war unopposed?
Why?
I am very interested in learning the answer to that question and wish someone would explain that to me.
My God, bart, these are your allies? Who knew? No wonder you hang out over here. I mean, even shooter can't tell a liberal from computer printout, but you...you've got a certain je ne sais quois. (Oops there I go again, quoting our enemies as though they actually had a language worth listening to. And after all my attempts to seem hospitable, too.)
ReplyDeleteDo you think that Truman might have prosecuted this scumbag photag for treason...
ReplyDeleteThis scumbag is photographing a sniper ...
The NYT not only employs this scumbag....
This scumbag obviously entered into a deal...
It's a good thing bart manages to hide his true feelings and lets his comments only reflect the facts in a purely objective fashion. Unlike those scumbag commenters on "left wing" blogs.
My purely objective analysis is that bart has gone so far around the bend that he's lapping himself.
80% of journalist are liberal?
ReplyDeleteI know I'll hear it for this but, in Franken's book Lies and Lying liars... he noted a university study of journalist opinion on national issues vs the general public's. I don't have my copy handy, so I can not give the actual study ref. The results; 65% were on the clear opposite side of the issue compared to the public. The public being for what is often noted as liberal agenda issues.
Even C span can't get it neutral (and I thought it was just me noticing a change). But:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2764
To test C-SPAN’s claims of fairness, Extra! studied Washington Journal’s guestlist, tabulating all 663 guests that appeared on the show in the six-month period from November 1, 2004 to April 30, 2005. Guests were classified by gender, ethnicity, party affiliation (if any) and occupation. The study also looked at the think tanks most prominently represented on the show.
On gender, Washington Journal was even more imbalanced when compared to the general population, with a guestlist that was 80 percent male (533 guests) and 20 percent female (130), a four-to-one imbalance. Furthermore, 69 percent of guests were white males (457), while just 3 percent were women of color.
Out of the 205 partisan guests, Republicans outnumbered Democrats nearly two to one (134 to 70): Republicans accounted for 65 percent of Washington Journal’s partisan guests, while Democrats made up 34 percent. No representative of a third party appeared during the study period.
Elected officials who appeared on Washington Journal were slightly more balanced than overall partisan guests. Of the 97 elected officials appearing on the show (senators and House members), 58 were Republican and 39 were Democrat—a 60 to 40 percent imbalance in favor of the GOP.
When opinion journalists from all outlets were included, the right-leaning bias was nearly as strong: 32 right-of-center journalists appeared, vs. 19 left-of-center reporters (even counting editor Peter Beinart, the New Republic’s pro-war editor, as being on the left). Perhaps this tilt to the right could be rationalized if right-wing magazines were distinctly more popular than their counterparts on the left, but the reverse seems to be true; Mother Jones and The Nation both best National Review’s circulation numbers by a wide margin, and The Progressive outsells the Weekly Standard and American Spectator.
There is more, but I think one gets the point.
That guys right about the faux advertise liberal circle of links - nothin' liberal about the group and even less intellectual.
ReplyDeleteIts just like the pundits that MSM creates - put the same fools on TV and pretty soon they are "experts" as in "I stayed at a holiday inn express last night"
Glenn Greenwald said...
ReplyDeleteSo you see nothing wrong with a photographer taking what are essentially propaganda photos for our enemies?
I reject the premise. The idea that those are propaganda photographs is idiotic. It is a very straightforward picture - a sniper is standing there with a rifle. What is even arguably propagandistic about that?
Oh, please! You are either stuck on stupid or are willfully blind.
You know damn well how this book is being marketed as pure and unadulterated enemy propaganda. I presume you read what was posted on LGF before you drafted the lead post on this thread. In case you didn't, I reposted it before you wrote this nonsense.
The only propaganda I see is the insistence by people like you that the media should cooperate with the administration's attempts to pretend that there is no insurgency.
Now you are changing the subject. This NYT photog is not objectively reporting a newsworthy event about the existaence of the Mahdi Army. Every news outlet in the world reported in the Battle of Najaf and no one complained about it then or since.
Rather, this NYT photog is offering visual and probably written enemy propaganda in a book.
I think he/she had the word counts reasonably accurate too. What's the matter? Can't you handle the truth?
ReplyDeleteWhat you fail to realize, Bart is that these photos and this book have been published from a neutral point of view that holds all human beings have equal potential for good and evil.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bart, the sniper believes in a "narrative about faith, sacrifice, war and martyrdom" just as much as you do. Just. As. Much.
The problem is that neither of you sees the other as a humans motivated by identical impulses. When you look at him, and he looks at you, what each of you sees is your own (albeit unconscious) bad selves.
I'm beginning to fear that the real cure for this is out of reach for any person who refuses to acknowledge the common humanity of all who occupy this planet.
This has always been the psychological cause for war.
Know thyself Bart,
Your Friendly Therapist
"If this rhetoric persists it's only a matter of time before some brave "patriot" fulfills Ann Coulter's wish and bombs the New York Times."
ReplyDeleteIt will happen sometime after Democrats retake control of congress and possibly the WH (in 08).
There is NO WAY that the whipped-up extremists are going to consent to be governed by people they have spent 8 years calling "traitors".
Rather, this NYT photog is offering visual and probably written enemy propaganda in a book.
ReplyDeleteIf the Mahdi Army is the "enemy" why hasn't the US military killed Sadr or arrested him yet?
1.) They're slackers.
2.) They can't kill him.
3.) They don't consider the Mahdi Army the enemy.
I thought "we" were winning in Iraq? How can "we" be winning if there's a huge "enemy" militia within walking distance of the green zone?
bart: You know damn well how this book is being marketed as pure and unadulterated enemy propaganda.
ReplyDeletePropaganda perhaps, but enemy propaganda? Aren't the people o Iraq our friends -- didn't we, after all, liberate them from an evil tyrant, and provide them with a freely elected democratic government? Don't we still have diplomatic relations with that government? How can they be enemies?
Oh, I see. These guys are rebels, kinda like the Continental Army of 1776. So that makes us what -- the Hessians?
Propaganda perhaps, but enemy propaganda?
ReplyDeleteHow do we know it's not US government propaganda?
Maybe it's a way of letting the Sunni insurgents know the Shiites are capable of defending themselves when the US military leaves?
Last Brain Frozen's "source". Silent Coup Book by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin in which they contend that John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters to protect his future wife, then named Maureen Biner, by removing information linking her to a call-girl ring that worked for the DNC.
ReplyDeleteI understand your need to pull the argument into a partisan context, but just read the tape and hearing transcripts, you certainly don't need to rely on a badly written political hack piece for your information.
We should all be glad this cretin does this with his spare time instead of give in to his urges to hang out at the playground and molest small children.
Top notch debate and a disturbing glimpse into the partisan mind. So quick to go so far. Obsessed with personalities (and children) instead of ideas. Loyalty above sin.
Well played my "sharpening your skills, preparing for a full on cannon fodder frontal assault of Ann Coulter" troll brother. Well played.
phd9:
ReplyDelete[Arne]: But then, everyone knows you're ["the major"] really a liberal under cover anyways....
I used to think so too but judging from the quality of the newer trolls coming in, now I'm not so sure.
In the midst of his horrible spelling, he used and spelled the word "assassinate" correctly ... and that one even has four syllables. That tipped his hand right there. ;-)
Cheers,
What the willfully ignorant trolls never focus on is that all their BS won't change things on the ground in Iraq one bit
ReplyDeleteIt can't be easy backing a President whose colossal failure in Iraq has destabilized the entire region now, wasted lives, limbs, blood and treasure at a voracious rate
On top of that, throw in the Administration's most shameful, inept moment, it's immediate and ongoing response to Katrina. For three days after the storm hit, people died and New Orleans drowned, Dear Leader froze with indecision at the time when strong, decisive leadership was called for, instead choosing to keep up his fundraising vacation
Of all the absurd suggestions, that a photographer should disarm a sniper is staggeringly stupid, an action those who endorse would never attempt themselves
The reason the wingnuts/trolls/W lackeys sound so shrill is that they know they don't represent the political and social mainstream in this country, they know their time of political dominance is coming to an end sooner rather than later
The W lackeys are now in the minority, and it drives them absolutely crazy, as if their trolling will somehow magically result in the nation rallying around this Administration in overwhelming numbers
And here's some good questions to ask the W sheeple about Valerie Plame's outing, and not one W backer can answer them in a way positive for this Administration
Valerie Plame's job was to track and disrupt the transfer of WsMD to rogue regimes, groups and individuals, with Iran the focus of her attempts at the time of her outing
In the course of her efforts, she used a CIA front operation called Brewster Jennings, which meant that she had various dealings with undercover operatives, and double agents in other govts, around the world
So.....
How did outing Plame make this country safer as a result?
How did outing Plame make it easier to recruit the best and the brightest to help keep WsMD out of the hands of rogue regimes, groups and individuals?
When Plame was outed, it was inevitable that her CIA front of Brewster Jennings would be disclosed as well, thereby exposing all those undercover operatives and double agents in other Govts
How did outing Plame, and then Brewster Jennings make it easier to recruit the foreign operatives and double agents needed to keep WsMD out of the hands of rogue regimes, groups and individuals?
How did the Administration's DELIBERATE outing of Plame increase the trust level between the White House and the CIA's intelligence analysts?
And on top of everything else, point out how the Iraq invasion and occupation hasn't gotten us Usama bin Laden, the theological thug who okayed the 9-11 strike
The Administration is pretty well reduced to begging, pleading and whimpering now when it comes to foreign policy, as the military is so overstretched both here in the US and Iraq, there's not much of a military option this Administration has at this time
So screech away trolls, it's not going to change unpleasant truths and real-world concerns more to your liking, not in the least
as if their trolling will somehow magically result in the nation rallying around this Administration in overwhelming numbers.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is more magical thinking from those who already hold doctorates in it.
YFT
This is a private army of an Islamic fascist who, at the time these photos were taken, was trying to subjugate the Shia holy city of Najaf. In doing so, he was killing the troops of the elected government of Iraq (as well as ours, if you give a damn).
ReplyDeleteThey know where Sadr is. Why haven't they killed or arrested him?
If we're winning, how is it that the "enemy" can openly maintain an army in the country we're supposedly "winning" in?
Remember, Sadr isn't like the Sunni insurgents. They know who he is, where he is, and who his troops are.
And yet they tolerate his presence.
I guess we're not exactly "winning" then, are we?
Delphine (and any others willing to take the time to do things neat):
ReplyDeleteLet me try that link again for Cowpunk:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/
politics/whispers/articles/
060716/24whisplead.htm
I put in returns so the url wouldn't get cut off.
First, if you leave it on one line, without the carriage returns, people can double-click to select and paste the whole line, even if Blogger cuts off the right hand side in what's visible. If you put in the hard returns, people will have to cut'n'paste repeatedly to get the full link.
BUT: The better way!
You can do the neat blue clickies but larning a little HTML (notice the helpful comment above the "Leave your comment" window).
Here's how ya do it:
To make a link to URL http://foo.null and to have it show as a blue clicky with the text This is a link to my page, you'd type in the following:
<a href="http://foo.null">This is a link to my page</a>
Bolding text is <b>text to be bolded</b>
To italicise text, do <i>text to be italicised</i>
HTH.
Cheers,
thelastnamechosen:
ReplyDeleteIf John Dean could come up with something resembling a coherent narrative, I think he could offer a great deal to the debate of today. The idea that he was spying the the name of "a political ideology based on the imperatives of limiting government power", is absurd on its face.
Given the circumstances of Watergate it is much more plausible to argue that there has been no transformation at all in "conservatism" and the republican party.
I many not agree with everything that Dean says (he still calls himself a Goldwater conservative; just points out than now he's to the left of the Republican party).
But you should keep in mind that Dean was one of those that blew the whistle on Nixon in the end. He was one of those that had a moral qualm about the excesses taken by the Nixon maladministration. Yes, he took his lumps for his participation, but even at the time, I think he showed some contrition and a willingness to try and set things right.
Cheers,
bart: The Mahdi Army militia is in no way the same as the people of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteAt the rate things are going, that's questionable at best. Certainly they seem to represent a substantial portion of the Shi'a population of Baghdad, a not inconsiderable number of people.
I'm sure that the Hessians thought that Washington's troops were the enemy, too, but when the issue was finally decided, it turned out that they were the enemy, and King George didn't get to hang Tom Paine, or a single member of the Continental Congress. I imagine you think that's quite a pity, too.
The long and the short of it is that we won't be the ones to decide which factions will ultimately constitute the legitimate government of Iraq, any more than the English Parliament could ultimately decide the shape our consitution would take.
If I were an Iraqi, I daresay I'd be taking a few shots at the occupier myself. Pour encourager les autres, you understand. (Damn, there's that enemy language again. Guess I must be a traitor after all.)
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteDo you actually e-mail some of these posts to journalists or do you just hope that they will read them?
You write some amazing posts and yet I fear they are wasted if you aren't actively sending them to your intended audience.
Adam.
Stanley W. Rogouski said...
ReplyDeleteThey know where Sadr is. Why haven't they killed or arrested him?
Because he surrendered and entered the democratic process. After the elections, his candidate for prime minister lost.
The Iraqis are offering the same effective amnesty for the Sunni if they do the same.
last turd frozen...Top notch debate and a disturbing glimpse into the partisan mind. So quick to go so far. Obsessed with personalities (and children) instead of ideas. Loyalty above sin.
ReplyDeleteWell played my "sharpening your skills, preparing for a full on cannon fodder frontal assault of Ann Coulter" troll brother. Well played.
Thank you. Coming from a third rate mud slinger like yourself, I'll take that as an admission that you are in awe of my ability and lay prostrate and humbled by your betters.
Have you been to Jesusland, lately?
BoBo's World
Partisanship against some parties is a virtue.
Bart, when all the networks were showing video of zarqawi shooting a machine gun, you know the thing that actually was enemy propaganda, why didn't that bother you?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous...It will happen sometime after Democrats retake control of congress and possibly the WH (in 08).
ReplyDeleteThere is NO WAY that the whipped-up extremists are going to consent to be governed by people they have spent 8 years calling "traitors".
Excellent! Then we can "repress then into oblivion" with the very mechanisms they've put in place.
Hoist by their own petard.
delphine said...
ReplyDeleteSorry. Couldn't help it.
: )
12:19 AM
I also recently learned how to create linkable text in comments sections, and it's so cool to finally figure out how to do it
If you've got your own blog, it's always easy to do a test run on a text-link in the comments section-If it works out, just delete it afterwards
HWSNBN trots otu this old lie again:
ReplyDeleteHowever, they don't seem to be all that interested in Dean and the leftist blogs utter failure to win any elections be-kos their ideas are rejected by most Donkeys nevertheless everyone else.
The RW "truthiness" is that Kos hasn't had a winner. The facts are different. HWSNBN even weighed in on that thread, after it had been pointed out that this RW "spin point" was crap, and he got corrected, but he's back spewign the same ol' lies again, thinking that folks won't remember his past errors.
The righty blogs for the most part do not have the delusion that they run the GOP, not that the media generally has a clue about what makes the GOP win.
Umm, HWSNBN is right; the GOP runs the righty blogs instead. They paid a couple to support Jim Thune's SD campaign in 2004.
Cheers,
Glenn's post:
ReplyDeleteToday's treasonous act is that a NYT photographer took photographs of a member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in combat with American forces.
Bart said, and quoted...
At the time these photographs were taken, the Mahdi Army militia was attempting to conquer the Shia holy city of Najif and was killing Iraqi and US soldiers.[...]
"The pictures in this book are not displayed in a chronological order [...] They were taken while on assignment for The New York Times, from July 30 to November 3, 2003, from January 16 till April 1, 2004, from June16 until August 30, 2004, and again from January 18, 2005 until March 31, 2005."
At the time this photographer hooked up with the Al-Sadr faction they had not yet been designated 'the enemy' (see dates boldfaced above). Sadam's Sunni Ba'athist faction was the enemy we went there to remove from power. Blaming the NYT for sending someone to cover the Shi'ites at this point in time is to blame them for reporting on the actions of potential allies.
If this book celebrates violent, Shi'ite radicalism & warlordism as is indicated by LGF, then I doubt I have much sympathy with the photographer; he seems to have lost his objectivity with respect to his subjects over the years he was with them. But my contempt for the moral relativism of a Eurotrash artiste doesn't lessen my greater contempt for RW blogging propagandists.
Glenn covered this latest electronic teacup tempest in order to document the cascade of allegation/threat/threat/...action that the RW blogs are poised to engender irrespective of whether their target deserves their attacks.
Glenn's post:
LGF then links to Jeff Goldstein, who [...] declares: "Looks like the NYT has decided to go with neutrality over objectivity
—essentially severing ties with their own country [...] Goldstein's post is then predictably followed by comments such as this:
It is clear (as it has been) that the NYT’s has chosen their side. They should suffer the consequences thereof. I just hope they do.
And this:
Talk of treason is out of fashion for some reason, but I could see some photographer hanged without losing too much sleep over it.
And this:
As i said over at LGF, pity the reporter didn’t catch any return fire.
He was looking to document the ginning up of violent intentions by RW bloggers in the U.S. It may be a useful timeline if someone at the NYT gets injured or killed this time around.
This blatant, in your face enemy propaganda doesn't at all upset you, does it?
I hold it in contempt. Likewise, with ultra-rightist elimination-talking propagandists of the blogosphere. Why do you always give them a pass?
Delphine,
ReplyDeleteThe Washington Times, (the Moonie Times), is about as credible as the Enquirer. I'm sorry that you read it, but that's your problem.
I put "Islamo-fascist" in quotes because it's meaningless word used to demonize an entire religion based on extremists in that religion.
It's tough all over for women, even here. If you are a woman, count your lucky stars to be here. Nothing happening to women in Saudi Arabia is any worse than in India, a predominantly Hindu democracy. We even have fundamentalists here who do some awful things to women. Branch Davidians, Polygamists...then there is the little matter of the Marianas. That's a Republican scandal and to that freak Last Turd Frozen, yeah, Goldwater conservatives suck, but they would never have allowed that. later in his life, Goldwater cursed religious fundies. Dean was there for that, personally. My point, Delphine my dear, is this: if your are going to make this a religious issue, be without sin yourself before casting any stones. You probably live in a glass house.
In the midst of his horrible spelling, he used and spelled the word "assassinate" correctly ... and that one even has four syllables. That tipped his hand right there. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBwahahaha! Mispeling assinate in a parody post! Tinhorn!
This blatant, in your face enemy propaganda doesn't at all upset you, does it?
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned with all propaganda. All propaganda comes from enemies of the truth, therefore, all propaganda comes from my enemies.
Gregory at Belvravia Dispatch -- and do recall, he was once an avid Bush supporter -- reminds us of what the brilliant and prescient Bill Kristol was spewing about Iraq once upon a time:
ReplyDeleteThere's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America," he told National Public Radio listeners in the war's opening weeks, "that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's been almost no evidence of that at all," he continued. "Iraq's always been very secular."
And we should listen to these deranged fools why again? These same loons who want us bombing Iran and Syria yesterday?
From a commenter at my favorite(!) winknut - rightwingsparkle -- on her post linked from JG:
ReplyDeleteI wonder: if the US soldiers capture that NYT photog in the field, can they hold him as an enemy combatant? Even better, seeing as he wasn't wearing a uniform, according the the Geneva Conventions the USofA has the right to EXECUTE the sucka...
Which actually also shows another way they twist things around . . .
And not simply rightwing bloggers..
ReplyDeleteHow about this presumptive rightwing media undermining its very own government.. insofar (at least) as read by the 'wrong' eyes from anywhere on the Internet.. this is a sight more than provocative and a tad too revealing.. yes?
"Iran's diverse population should be fertile ground for a covert operation. Iran is only 51 percent Persian. Azerbaijanis and Kurds comprise nearly 35 percent of the population. Seventy percent are under 30, and the jobless rate hovers near 20 percent."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/101dorxa.asp?pg=2
"Excellent! Then we can "repress then into oblivion" with the very mechanisms they've put in place.
ReplyDeleteHoist by their own petard."
I'd rather avoid it altogether - these things have a way of spiraling out of control no matter who is in charge.
Sadly, I dont think there is much hope of avoiding something like it. I just dont think the wingnuts are going to sit back while people they consider traitors take over the government. Then the argument for domestic durveillance will be even more compelling ... we are so fucked.
Interested parties might wish to read the Talk Page at the John Dean Wiki entry. Apparently Dean has read his entry and written about it in findlaw articles. For myself, I take Dean to mean he is a "Goldwater Republican" in the sense of the Goldwater he spent time with many years later before he passed. Anyone claiming that is in any way equivalent to a 1964 Goldwater Republican is an ignorant moron or a RW troll trying to discredit Dean. I have more in common with Dean today than Paul Craig Roberts, and as last game frozen points out, I'm a partisan lefty so if it comes down to which felon I'm going to believe, Dean wins it hands down. That's the conclusion the researchers at Wiki reached after many months in contact with Colodny himself. He's a liar.
ReplyDeleteall their BS won't change things on the ground in Iraq one bit
ReplyDeleteThey could, in many cases, change things, again only a little bit, if they wanted to,
Delphine,
ReplyDeleteAll that to justify saying you think what happens to women in indentured servitude in Israel is "bullshit"?
First of all, please don't call me "my dear". It's demeaning and stupid.
I don't feel that way when my wife says that to me. My wife doesn't feel that way when I say it to her, but you aren't my wife. The real test is when the sweet little old ladies in my neighborhood say it to me or when they say it to my kids. Nope. Not demeaning or stupid. Perhaps you meant condescending in that context. It was meant to be, but it doesn't always have that intent, nor do people always get that from it.
You have succeeded in comparing the degenerates in the Saudi royal family, or the likes of that fat degenerate bastard the Sultan of Brunei, to perverts and white slavers in Israel. Thanks for making my point. What this has to do with Islamic fundies who stone women to death for showing their teeth in public, I do not know.
Who's being stupid and demeaning who?
Delphine..."But I'm a Liberal!"
And...? You want a cookie, dear?
Class War Politics
ReplyDeletePAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 19, 2006
In case you haven't noticed, modern American politics is marked by vicious partisanship, with the great bulk of the viciousness coming from the right. It's clear that the Republican plan for the 2006 election is, once again, to question Democrats' patriotism.
But do Republican leaders truly believe that they are serious about fighting terrorism, while Democrats aren't? When the speaker of the House declares that "we in this Congress must show the same steely resolve as those men and women on United Flight 93," is that really the way he sees himself? (Dennis Hastert, Man of Steel!) Of course not.
So what's our bitter partisan divide really about? In two words: class warfare. That's the lesson of an important new book, "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," by Nolan McCarty of Princeton University, Keith Poole of the University of California, San Diego, and Howard Rosenthal of New York University.
"Polarized America" is a technical book written for political scientists. But it's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what's happening to America.
What the book shows, using a sophisticated analysis of Congressional votes and other data, is that for the past century, political polarization and economic inequality have moved hand in hand. Politics during the Gilded Age, an era of huge income gaps, was a nasty business — as nasty as it is today. The era of bipartisanship, which lasted for roughly a generation after World War II, corresponded to the high tide of America's middle class. That high tide began receding in the late 1970's, as middle-class incomes grew slowly at best while incomes at the top soared; and as income gaps widened, a deep partisan divide re-emerged.
Both the decline of partisanship after World War II and its return in recent decades mainly reflected the changing position of the Republican Party on economic issues.
Before the 1940's, the Republican Party relied financially on the support of a wealthy elite, and most Republican politicians firmly defended that elite's privileges. But the rich became a lot poorer during and after World War II, while the middle class prospered. And many Republicans accommodated themselves to the new situation, accepting the legitimacy and desirability of institutions that helped limit economic inequality, such as a strongly progressive tax system. (The top rate during the Eisenhower years was 91 percent.)
When the elite once again pulled away from the middle class, however, Republicans turned their back on the legacy of Dwight Eisenhower and returned to a focus on the interests of the wealthy. Tax cuts at the top — including repeal of the estate tax — became the party's highest priority.
But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is a Republican move to the right on economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing the other party of being unpatriotic and godless.
Thus in 2004, President Bush basically ran as America's defender against gay married terrorists. He waited until after the election to reveal that what he really wanted to do was privatize Social Security.
Pre-New Deal G.O.P. operatives followed the same strategy. Republican politicians won elections by "waving the bloody shirt" — invoking the memory of the Civil War — long after the G.O.P. had ceased to be the party of Lincoln and become the party of robber barons instead. Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, was defeated in part by a smear campaign — burning crosses and all — that exploited the heartland's prejudice against Catholics.
So what should we do about all this? I won't offer the Democrats advice right now, except to say that tough talk on national security and affirmations of personal faith won't help: the other side will smear you anyway.
But I would like to offer some advice to my fellow pundits: face reality. There are some commentators who long for the bipartisan days of yore, and flock eagerly to any politician who looks "centrist." But there isn't any center in modern American politics. And the center won't return until we have a new New Deal, and rebuild our middle class.
Glenn--
ReplyDeleteYou excellent work here is greatly appreciated. This is another excellent post. Thank you.
Delphine:
ReplyDeleteRe: posting links: Congrats! Welcome to the club. My own initiation was torturous, but I prefer not to talk about that now. Some memories are best left unrecycled:)
Re: The Saudis: it isn't only women they treat like shit. I haven't recovered yet from reading that article "High Noon at Chop Chop Square." I thought I was reading science fiction or a parody of some sort until I realized it was real.
For the rest of my life, everytime I see the word Saudi, I am going to think of High Noon at Chop Chop Square.
And it's not just the Rulers. The people are all out there cheering like it was a sporting event or the guillotine falling during the French Revolution. Or Christians being thrown to the lions, or a bullfight in Spain or a cockfight in Spanish Harlem.
Some times it takes a lot of energy to work up much of an appreciation for the human race.
They won't cover the Bush Blogs because it does not interest them.
ReplyDeleteReal Journalism does not exist in the broadcast media only punditry.
PS. Speaking of the blogosphere, did anyone notice that article at Huffington Post called The Truth Laid Bear? It's a blog which has bloggers divided into sections, from Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, and it also links to blogs here and from around the world.
ReplyDeleteI found it very informative and urge all to check it out.
Yawn, what a clueless article, with a chorus of yes-men chiming in with cluless rejoinders. left-blogs that have feasted on anti-Bush conspiracy theories ("Rove indicted") for years are whining about right-blog in negative-spin mode. puleeze.
ReplyDeleteThere is something really too inside-baseball-navel-gazing about getting bent out of shape over the blogs getting bent out of shape over mainstream media's sucking up to one of America's enemies.
This is the only reply that made any sense:
"I give you Daily Kos (you have heard of him right?):
That said, I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.
Nothing extreme about disparaging American veterans killed, burned, and hung from a bridge. Nah.
Don't be ridiculous. There are extremes on both sides and reasonable people on both sides have a responsibility to condemn them."
Go ahead and take out the morons making over-the-top 'kill the muzzies' or heck
"Keller must hang for treason" comments.
Knocking down the other side extremists is fish-in-barrel fair game.
(Funny, LGF is playing that game on some anti-Israel KOS postings today.)
But - Tarring the whole group with the extremism was given a label of McCarthyism by liberals some time ago.
"A few days back, I suggested in one of your comment threads that there was nothing to be gained by paying too close attention to the screechings on the right. I was obviously wrong. We should be paying attention, and so should the FBI."
So much for freedom of speech, eh?
Do you wan the FBI and DU and KosFiles too, since this thread identified similar dumb 'hang em high' comments?
"I voted for Kerry - that is, against Bush - during a time of war.
Does that make me guilty of sedition and treason too? I mean, I really did want Bush to lose."
No, o course not, but it would help if the Democrats and liberals would find ways to engage in politics without aiding the propaganda of our real terrorist enemies. Eg, if you did like Michael Moore and started calling terrorists killing our soldiers "minutemen" and saying they were going to win (Moore was wrong on both counts), you be stepping to the edge of aiding and abetting.
Here's an example of an interesting comment posted by an Israeli:
ReplyDeleteOperation Peace for the IDF.
There must be as many opinions among the Israeli people as there are among Americans. The excerpts below don't do this excellent article justice. It's worth reading the whole thing just to get another point of view from an Israeli patriot whose point of view seems to differ from the ones we usually read.
Operation Peace for the IDF
By Gideon Levy
Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force....
In Gaza, a soldier is abducted from the army of a state that frequently abducts civilians from their homes and locks them up for years with or without a trial - but only we're allowed to do that. And only we're allowed to bomb civilian population centers....
The painful steps taken in Gaza, which included dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential building, or killing an entire family of seven children under cover of darkness in Lebanon, killing dozens of residents, bombing an airport, cutting off electricity and water to hundreds of thousands of people for months were a response lacking any justification, legitimacy or proportion. What goal did it serve? Was the soldier released? Did the Qassams stop? Was deterrence restored? None of that happened......
But does the fact that Hezbollah is a cynical organization that exploits the misery of Palestinians for its own purposes justify the disproportionate reaction? The concept that we have totally forgotten is proportionality. While we're in no hurry to get to the negotiating table, we're eager to get to the battlefield and the killing without delay, without taking any time to think. That deepens suspicions that we need a war every few years, with terrifying repetition, even if afterward we end up back in exactly the same position....
The war we declared on Lebanon has already exacted from us, and of course from Lebanon, too, a heavy price. Did anyone give any thought to the question whether it should be paid?.....
Everyone knows how this war begins, but does anyone know how it ends? Heavy casualties in the Israeli rear? A war with Syria? A general war? Is it all worth it? Look what a new rookie government can do in such a short time....
Behind the operations in Lebanon and Gaza is the same foolish idea about pressure on the population leading to political changes that Israel wants. In the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that concept has only led us from one disaster to the next....
" I fully understand that "Islamofascist" is a needlessly racist term coined by the right to dehumanize people of the Islamic faith and merge them into one big amorphous blob of "terrorists"."
ReplyDeleteActually, this is untrue on 3 points.
1) It was coined by the pro-war-on-terror (aka war on Islamofascism) Leftist Chris hitchens.
2) This is not racist at all, it is an ideological description, no more racist than the term 'socialist' or 'fascist' or 'libertarian'.
3) It is a deliberate attempt to *separate* most Muslims from the category of enemy, by making the enemy the adherents to a specific political program. That is appropriate. The real challenge and the real enemy in the 'war on terror' is an ideology (Islamofascism) and the power structure around it (Al Qaeda, Iran, etc). Terror is a tactic, and A "war on Qutbism" would be too obscure. Islamofascists are those who are willing to use any form of violence and terror to implement their vision of a Shari-Islamicist Caliphate.
I find it curious - do you jump over people when they use the equally dehumanizing 'racist' term "religious right" or "bible thumper" or "conservative Christian" or "neo-conservative" or "WASP" or "robber baron" or "male chauvanist" or ... etc.
labels, labels everywhere.
Patrick,
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong on all counts. The origin of the term is unclear.
If you want to get the true story, read the talk page at wiki entry on the term.
Regarding Hitchens being a leftist, most early neocons were leftists once. Trotskyites, in fact.
"80% of journalist are liberal?
ReplyDeleteI know I'll hear it for this but, in Franken's book Lies and Lying liars... he noted a university study of journalist opinion on national issues vs the general public's. I don't have my copy handy, so I can not give the actual study ref. The results; 65% were on the clear opposite side of the issue compared to the public. The public being for what is often noted as liberal agenda issues."
Some data points:
In 1992, Professors Weaver and Wilhoit conducted a national survey of journalists: Nearly half of the journalists surveyed (47 percent) called themselves “liberal,” compared to 22 percent who described themselves as “conservative.” Gallup polls taken at the same time found just 18 percent of the public considered themselves liberal, while 34 percent of the public said they were conservative.
In 1992, a Freedom Forum survey of Washington reporters and bureau chiefs revealed 89 percent voted for Clinton versus 7 percent for Bush in 1992.
In 2004, the New York Times conducted an informal poll of journalists at the recent Democratic convention that showed they favor John Kerry for president over President Bush by 3 to 1, while reporters based in Washington, D.C., support the Massachusetts senator by 12 to 1.
And their response on issue polls is very liberal:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_2001_Spring/ai_73368520
"Although most journalists were not socialists, they strongly sympathized with the left wing of the Democratic party. Thus 45 percent agreed that the American legal system favors the wealthy, more than twice the number of businessmen who held that point of view. And 68 percent of the journalists, compared with only 29 percent of the business leaders, believed that government should substantially reduce the income gap between rich and poor. On social issues, the pattern was much the same. Journalists were more permissive on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, and adultery than were businessmen. Finally, both groups eyed each other with suspicion, believing that the other exercised far more influence over American life than it should."
It is indisputable that journalists are more liberal as a group than Americans overall.
Franken is one of those liars he keeps talking about.
I can't seem to divine whether you are agreeing with Shooter or disagreeing. Or just bashing Israel to bash Israel. Or being deliberately dense.
ReplyDeleteSchwing!
Let's drop it. I don't have time for this. If you don't get it you don't get it. I bash everyone, but I bash my own country first, and the most. If more so-called "patriots" did that, the world would be a better place. Before you go around criticizing others, tend to your own short-comings first.
"What LGF, Malkin, and the rest are doing is shining a bright light on the MSM's perfidy, which goes back to their misreporting on the Tet Offensive and their refusal to correct their error, and runs through Dan Rather and Mary Mapes going with an obviously fabricated story in a desperate effort to influence a national election, to the NYT revealing one classified anti-terror program after another."
ReplyDeleteSuch exposing of journalistic malpractice is clearly 'verboten' and must be crushed. It's like revealing the man behind the curtain.